An Old Fox's New Trick
by kamorge0
Summary: A quest for power spanning decades has left Naruto estranged from the very world he once fought alongside his friends so hard to protect. Fifty years later, Naruto is once again spurned and is once again left alone and without a friend in the world. Follow his journey of self-discovery as Naruto struggles to overcome the scars of a cruel past.
1. Solemn Reflection

**_Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to RWBY or Naruto. I'd hope this one warning would be enough to dissuade a team of lawyers from knocking at my door, but I've heard enough horror stories that every chapter will start as such._**

 ** _Hey Guys! Kamorge0 here with my first story I've ever posted, hopefully it turns out well! I've always loved the growth of Naruto as a character and felt that the RWBY universe had so much room for potential so I decided it would be a good candidate for the crossover. The idea behind this story is going to be less of a standard hero's journey and more of a road to regaining something lost. A lot of other author's have written some magnificent fan fiction about Naruto in the RWBY universe... but I feel that we don't have enough good pieces that capture a post Kaguya Naruto in all of his power. A lot of people would argue that it is hard to make the stakes interesting when your main character is borderline omnipotent in the universe they enter... but that's what I'm going to strive to do! Please PM me any questions or review if you feel like it. I'm looking to learn from this experience and will continue to spit out chapters on a daily basis for awhile if this gets any form of reception. With that being said Enjoy An Old Fox's New Trick_**

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

 **Solemn Reflection**

Lost in the solace of thought he couldn't help but wonder how the dream he had chased for the entirety of his life could leave him feeling so empty when it was fulfilled. _How is it possible that all of my work, effort, blood, sweat, and tears could leave me so alone?_ Naruto thought to himself. He leaned back against the tree he was seated against and sighed with such weighty melancholy that anyone within earshot would have been reduced to a frown. Well, save one.

 _Ha!_ Kurama scoffed at him. _You thought that you could become a Sage of Six Paths, be one of the two forces that ended the fourth shinobi war, defeat the one who fought all 5 Kages to submission, defeat the progenitor of ninja and then become the jinchūriki of all nine tailed beasts without estranging yourself? I figured after everything we've been through you'd have a little bit more going on between those ears._ Kurama chortled from his position on Naruto's lap. He proceeded to yawn and then curl into a ball and rested his head on his own singular bushy tail.

 _That isn't even fair!_ Naruto pouted his lower lip out and harrumphed while looking to side. _And I'm not the the jinchūriki of the rest of them! They just come by to visit… sometimes._ Kurama opened one red eye and shot Naruto a glare.

 _Shukaku has visited you through his chakra 5 times in the past week. You managed to tame the madness, and then proceed to befriend even that stupid sand racoon! I didn't even know Shukaku could be calmed down._ Kurama's eye closed again as he stretched before returning to his position.

 _Come on… he just has spent so much time alone after Hagoromo jiji passed that he lost himself. I couldn't just leave him like that. I figured if I could get through to you then Shu would be a piece of cake!_ Naruto grinned. It lasted only a moment before the mirth quickly receded and left him feeling as empty as before.

 _Bastard… I'm not saying I disagree with what you did, but the Kages know that if you called on any of us then we would be there with you in battle or otherwise. You are the only one since Hagoromo that has the respect of the tailed beasts, they aren't wrong to fear that._ Naruto grunted in affirmation. A second later a small smile played across his lips and he flicked Kurama's ear. The fox growled at Naruto, not even bothering to open his eyes.

 _Are you saying that you respect me Kurama? I think I might blush._

 _Not even if you lived a hundred more years. Eight out of nine isn't bad though._ Naruto returned Kurama's growl and the fox snickered back while his body lightly shook from the action. _You know if you choose to fight this then they can't make you. Even Sasuke wouldn't be able to do anything about it nowadays. You don't have to do this kid…_ Try as he might the fact was that over the past fifty years Kurama had gotten close to him. It hurt to see his host put himself through this.

 _I made my choice before this began. I chose to chase a power that would make me the best and let me protect everyone. I got my wish and we were able to defeat Kaguya and seal her away. Just like you said… my fault I didn't realize how the next generation would react to that._ Naruto gave such a weak smile. When Kurama popped his eyes open and saw the smile so devoid of anything resembling happiness he couldn't help but slowly become enraged. As his chakra seeped out a mass exodus of birds and other creatures could be heard. Naruto once again flicked his ear causing Kurama to try to bite the offending finger. Naruto chuckled and pulled his hand back. A moment past and he then ran his hand through Kurama's fur. The pair sat in near silence as time passed, the only sound the wind through the trees as all of the wildlife had fled.

"Naruto." An old gruff voice called out. "It's time."

Naruto looked up and saw Sasuke standing there. Grey hair slightly above his shoulder and light wrinkles running through his face. Naruto heaved one last sigh and stood up. His young 17 year old appearance a stark contrast to his aged best friend.

"How are they leaning?" Naruto coughed, using his voice for the first time in weeks.

"Not good dobe… You know I'm not going to make you do this. I'm debating refusing regardless of the decision they make… regardless of the decision you make. Kakashi won't let them do this if you refuse." Sasuke looked down at his best friend with a face filled with utter morose. Fifty years ago Naruto would be shocked to see such a sad expression on Sasuke's face, but his friend's face mirrored his own thoughts so perfectly that he couldn't even find it in himself to tease him.

"We've resolved ourselves to this path Sasuke… this isn't our world alone. If I'm creating problems then maybe it is time to set off on another journey." Naruto stood, displacing Kurama who floated to the ground and put a hand on his friend's shoulder. He gave him another weak smile and proceeded to walk ahead. Sasuke turned and followed side by side while Kurama trailed behind both.

"They wouldn't even have a world if it weren't for us… I can't believe it has gotten to this point." Sasuke grunted, mentally running through possible solutions for the umpteenth time as he tried to figure a way out of this that didn't involve a massacre. Something he could convince his friend and everyone else with to not take things towards what was becoming more apparent to be the inevitable end.

"Kids can't be expected to remember things they didn't live through Sasuke. We can tell them the stories, but they didn't live through the things we did. We fought and watched people die since we were twelve. Some of the new Kages haven't even seen death." Naruto explained softly. Sasuke once again grunted. There were no words to describe his feelings about what he knew he was going to be asked to do. "You have to do it if they decide Sasuke. I won't bother this world any longer if it has no need of me…"

Sasuke wheeled on Naruto and grabbed him roughly by the shoulders. "What if I need you dobe! Your friends are still here! All of us are here and doing everything we can to fight this! Why are you giving in!?" Sasuke broke down into tears and Naruto embraced him into his shoulder. An old man crying into a seeming boy's shoulders. Naruto's eyes were listless and empty as he remembered the past few years.

* * *

After the Fourth Shinobi War everything seemed like it was going to be fine. Naruto had settled down was worshipped as a hero. Instead of every day being filled with battle he was able to relax and spend time with the friends he never thought he would have. The Tailed beasts were given freedoms they never expected as well. Each was allowed respective land to roam free unmolested. All except Kurama and Gyūki did so. Kurama was content to stay with Naruto and "make sure their meeting place stayed in one piece" as he put it. A flimsy excuse all the Bijuu recognized, but left well enough alone. Gyūki likewise chose to stay with Bee until his passing, where he then too left to his allocated land. Regardless, after his time spent studying fūinjutsu for a Naruto was able to bind their Chakra together, but free Kurama's body from himself like the other Bijuu.

At first Naruto was tasked with a job from Tsunade Baa-chan to go around the world and stop crime. He stopped drug trading rings, human trafficking, dethroned mob bosses and countless other things. When the maelstrom known as Naruto came through a distinct lack of crime followed. Over the next few years crime almost disappeared. What was the point if any aspiring criminal knew they would get caught? After he stamped out crime in the Leaf the other nations would occasionally request help with more serious problems as well. All was well and good for decades. The only problem being the distinct lack of social life and grounding that Naruto had. Bouncing from place to place while being repeatedly assigned jobs.

This had an unforeseen consequence that Naruto had never predicted. As he continued to stop crime in all ways, shapes, and forms the ninja from villages were growing weaker and weaker. Gone were the days of risking your village's children in life or death fights. A new age of peace was ushered in and Naruto was its enforcer. After Naruto's generation of Kage's retired a new generation took their place. Konohamaru was now the oldest of the Kage, the rest were in between 20 to 30. Konohamaru was also the last remaining ninja hokage.

The change surprised Naruto at first; all of the Kage had been ninja previously. He shrugged it off and convinced himself that it was just part of the changing times. Since the past 4 decades of peace it seemed that the need for ninja was dying off. Although the ninja way was still alive and well in Konohagakure (largely due to the preaching of Konohamaru on the Will of Fire) even there the ninja were weaker than in his generation.

His problems had started when the new Raikage was dealing with protests in his streets. The people were protesting against the harsh yoke of taxation that the new Raikage had imposed upon them. Something happened and the protest got violent. The Raikage then charged Naruto with discovering who was involved with the protest and rounding them up to be tried. Naruto then went to the the Cloud Village and started to do just that. After some brief investigation that would have done Jiraiya proud he was able to find the home of one of the protesters. Naruto did what was expected and informed the man that he was going to be taken before the Cloud's council. What was not expected was what happened next.

The man spun a story about how the protest was peaceful until they were attacked by the ninja police force of the Cloud. People were killed, blood filled the streets and the protesters largely ran. There was violence to be had, but they were not the one's to initiate it.

Naruto didn't know how to react. Sure there were bad seeds in the Leaf like Danzo, but no kage had ever gone so far as to exterminate their people publicly in the streets! The Uchiha massacre was the worst thing a nation had ever done to their own people to his knowledge and even that was carried out in the most cloak and dagger fashion possible.

Naruto tracked more and more people down and the story stayed consistent. After hearing the same story for around the 30th time he had heard enough. He stormed to the Raikage's office and demanded to know why an attack on innocent civilians was ordered. He demanded to know the reasoning behind the needless bloodshed. To this day he could still remember the answer he received as vividly as the day he heard it.

"They weren't innocent people. We asked them to desist and they refused, this was against our law. We had jailed several in the previous protests many times before and yet they continued, an example needed to be made and we did it. You're here to uphold the law, not question it."

* * *

Naruto sighed in real life. His arms patting Sasuke's shoulder as he continued to cry into his shoulder. It twisted a knife in his heart to see his best friend like this, but he had already made his decision. He was someone who protected his precious people… and they had been protected. Now it was time for him to fade away.

"We've had a good, full life Sasuke. I mean come on, I got to see you have a daughter of all people. Even more impressive is the fact that she didn't turn out broody and reclusive!" Naruto teased his old friend and punched him lightly in the shoulder while releasing him. Sasuke gave a watery chuckle and wiped his arm into his elbow.

"Heh… stupid Dobe." Sasuke muttered. Naruto chose not to tease his friend on the redundancy and started to press forward towards a large building a few miles away where the Five Kage Summit was being held. It was time to face his destiny.


	2. Harsh Verdict

**_Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Naruto or RWBY. If I did then Naruto would have ended how it began... with a passionate kiss between Teme and Dobe._**

 ** _Hello again! Kamorge0 here once more with the second chapter of OFNT. I finished three chapters off the bat before release because I figured absolutely no one would be interested in this story if I didn't at least get to the part that makes this a crossover XD. One question I expect to come up after this first chapter is "How am I supposed to believe Sasuke and Naruto get along so openly when their friendship was so unspoken in cannon?". Well the main reason I have this as is is because for the past 50 years Naruto took up a job similar to the one Sasuke took upon himself. However whereas Sasuke kept to the shadows in his work Naruto was thrust forward as the protector of the entire ninja world. After sharing more missions, living together on the road and other encounters that I will flashback to in the future are made known it will probably be more believable. For now I ask you to have faith and suspend your disbelief that they could get along so well :p Without any more adieu let us now proceed to chapter 2 of An Old Fox's New Trick._**

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

 **Harsh Verdict**

"This Five Kage Summit has come to a conclusion concerning Uzumaki Naruto and his crimes against humanity. The charges brought forth were destabilizing the world economy, threatening four of the five nations with force or usurpation, refusing to comply with national policy and assault of the Raikage. In all of the aforementioned matters we find him guilty and sentenced to exile." said the Mizukage, a young male with blue hair.

There was silence following his words… that lasted for less than a second.

"THIS IS ABSURD!" Konohamaru roared at the assembly. A wizened man in a sea of young rulers. "This man is the only reason you have a nation! The only reason any of you were even able to be born! Your predecessors would never have allowed for this madness!" He continued to bellow over the gathered assembly of 7. Naruto and Sasuke standing below their elevates seats at a semicircular table.

"That in itself is part of the problem." The Kazekage cooly replied. A young woman with red hair running down her lower back. Naruto had reflected in the past that she looked similar to the 5th Mizukage except without a shred of her warmth. "The previous Kazekage threatened to usurp my authority and retake his position should I allow this to pass. Your generation is filled with powerful warriors willing to fly off the handle to dispense their own justice. Uzumaki is the pinnacle of this philosophy. Time and time again have we as nation's made decisions only to have them vetoed by the threat of overwhelming force."

"You made decisions that cost lives, restricted the rights of your people, and slandered what it means to be Kage! Your 'decisions' as you call them were mad!" Konohamaru continued to shout. His old voice flamed with the intensity of steel being ground against gravel. No matter how many times Naruto saw Konohamaru with his gray goatee and elderly face he could never stop thinking of him as the scarf wearing boy he taught Jutsu to.

"Our decisions are ours to make… I suppose I should say our decisions should be ours to make as they clearly have not been." She levied Naruto an icy glare. "Exemplifying this is his actions after the revolt against the Raikage. He demanded that the decision to try the criminals be overturned, then when it was decided by popular vote that they should be persecuted he demanded that decision be overturned. He then set up his own village for the criminals in land ceded to him by the Hokage southwest of Shimogo when justice was demanded and ferried them away from any consequence to their action. Throughout multiple other incidents across the nations he continued to funnel criminals and their families into his village. After which he gave them such abundance by channeling his chakra into one of the last known users of of Mokuton to create a rich landscape filled with life and abundance." The Kazekage took a deep breath and then pressed forward.

"He then proceeded to train that village in the ways of the ninja so they could 'protect' themselves. When questioned about the training of a dangerous group of criminals Uzumaki stipulated that it was purely as a defensive measure and they would not use it aggressively. However, multiple incidents have been cited in which exactly that was done; usually it was in response to some slight against the name of their 'god'. The people of that village view him as their deity for Kami's sake. When the intent to persecute Uzumaki for his many crimes was made known they threatened war on any nation that voted in favor!" The Kazekage worked herself up through her speech to the point where it ended with her shouting.

"I don't even know where to start with you…" Sasuke said in a low, quiet voice that still managed to pierce through everyone in the room like a senbon. "First in the case of the Raikage Revolt a vote was only allowed to take place after a week of intense propaganda which spread the idea that the violence was initiated by the protesters." The Raikage stood and was about to speak when Sasuke pressed on to cut him off. "Even though the Raikage and his office never gave an official statement on what exactly happened the rumor was allowed to circulate before any vote was taken and he made no attempt to correct the misconception. You all know what the Raikage did, you all know it was intentional, and none of you care. When you tasked Naruto with being a protector you should have known that he would protect the people in any situation. That includes the Raikage Revolt where he had to protect them from you." Sasuke finished coldly, glaring down the Raikage with a hatred bordering bloodlust. The Raikage quailed before the sheer intensity of his gaze.

"We could argue about this for another week. We have argued about this for the better part of a year. The arguments have stayed the same for the entire time and no opinion has changed the slightest iota. If we proceed any longer Hatake Kakashi may pass and this decision will ultimately be moot. Regardless of your stance Sasuke the Five Kage Summit has reached their decision. Naruto Uzumaki, what will you do?" The Tsuchikage asked. Naruto smiled weakly at the Tsuchikage, knowing that this man was one of the two votes in his favor when the die was cast. He was the son of the fourth Tsuchikage and had been brought up hearing tales of Naruto's heroism from his mother. When Naruto had brought grievances to his nation he responded diplomatically, either convincing Naruto to his side or being convinced to Naruto's. Their relationship was that of distant friends and it pained him to see that this was how things had ended.

"I will go." Naruto responded simply. Those three short words had the impact of a death knell to his friend standing beside him. Konohamaru's world shattered in front of him. The teacher he had always aspired to make proud, who had trained him and taught him what it meant to be a ninja…

 _I couldn't save him._ Konohamaru mourned internally. He slumped back into the chair as all intensity left his body. He appeared a lifeless marionette whose strings has been cut. The sheer devastation that the situation wrought on his emotions was catastrophic. A shame deeper than any ravine, a hopelessness and emptiness so expansive it encompassed him in its entirety. Whereas the Tsuchikage also appeared saddened the other three Kages could have defined smug. They had finally got what they had been working towards the past half decade.

"In the event that this was approved and agreed to by Naruto there are a list of demands set by Hatake Kakashi for him to be willing to proceed." Sasuke stated at a pace so slow it seemed like each word caused him physical harm. The faces of the three Kages lost their smugness and turned into various aggressive frowns. He pressed on despite their looks that said they very clearly did not wish him to do so. "Firstly let it be known that the village Naruto founded, The Village Hidden in the Maelstrom will not be aggressed upon by any of the Kage under any circumstance. If any individuals from the village act out after the verdict they will be dealt with on an individual basis. All of the Kages will agree that an action by an individual cannot constitute an act of retaliation on the village itself." The three Kage leaned in and whispered to each other while Konohamaru gave a smile towards Sasuke. Internally he thanked Kakashi for at least helping to protect the legacy of his teacher.

"We reluctantly agree to this." The Mizukage responded. Sasuke nodded and then continued.

"Secondly all of the Bijuu who wish to leave with Naruto will be allowed to." This stipulation had the Raikage standing up again ready to interject. Sasuke proceeded to again ignore this. "This stipulation is put in place because the main argument to your banishment is that Naruto is too powerful to be controlled. The bijuu have always upset the balance of power in history when sought to be used as weapons or even as deterrents and go exactly against the philosophy you use to justify his exile. That aside under the influence of Naruto even the most violent of the bijuu have been calmed. Inciting their wrath would lead to wanton destruction. Not to mention jailing them to a container which they would not consent would be impossible" Sasuke concluded logically. Finally the Raikage would take no more.

"The Uchiha have the ability to subjugate the tailed beasts. Although not as proficient as Uzumaki himself we also have some few who know the old ways of fūinjutsu. We would absolutely be able to contain the bijuu and have every right to use them to prevent war as in the days of old!" The Raikage raged towards a resolute Sasuke. He was about to continue when he felt a hate so palpable that it robbed him of his ability to speak. A rage so intense he felt like he was drowning in a pool of tar so thick that he couldn't hope to move. All of the Kage but Konohamaru started gasping for breath as if they were suffocating and even he was wincing as if in pain.

"You dare think to enslave us again!?" A voice rumbled from outside the room. The double doors burst open and Kurama slowly stomped into the room. Although he was much larger than he previously was he still only stood 6 feet tall, but now in possession of all of his tails. Each step he took intensifying the miasma of hate that was enveloping them all. Naruto looked back and was about to placate Kurama when a blast of his chakra so intense caused the Raikage to faint. The remaining Mizukage and Kazekage now received the bulk of his ire. "I will give you one chance to revise your stance on this. It appears that the Raikage is indisposed so I will presume you insects fit to speak on his behalf."

"T-the council will accept the terms for all willing bijuu to leave along with Uzumaki!" The previously proud Kazekage practically squeaked out. Her voice brittle and weak under a power that so greatly and unfathomably surpassed her own. The malice started to recede as he gave them a withering glare.

"Tch" Kurama growled and turned back out through the door. Sasuke looked smug and would probably chuckle in any other situation.

"Neither I nor my daughter Sarada would be willing to subjugate the bijuu and hopefully that demonstration shows that even if you have not morally reconsidered your stance you would not have the power to. So although you may consider the decision made under duress I can assure you it is the right one." Sasuke stated with a little more joy than was professional to show.

"I-indeed…" The Kazekage concluded.

"The final demand is simple. Hatake Kakashi's eyes will be preserved and safeguarded by the Uchiha clan. If the council ever deems fit to reverse their decision then a descendant of my lineage may venture forth and seek to invite him back to this dimension if _and only if_ he is willing." Sasuke concluded.

"That is easily the most agreeable of the terms. If it is the will of the council that Uzumaki return then we will let him." The Mizukage agreed. Sasuke was slightly amused that they seemed aware that the Tsuchikage and Hokage would agree to anything in Naruto's favor so they only needed one of them to defect to change the vote on any decision.

"Then we will set off to where the bijuu are gathered to offer them their chance to leave. I have no desire to be in a room with you bastards any longer than possible. Were it not for the fact that I needed to stay behind to guarantee you kept your promises I would not want to be in the same dimension as you either." Sasuke barked at them. He quickly turned and left. Putting a hand on the seemingly shellshocked Naruto's shoulder and guiding him out the doors. He continued to lead him out the winding corridors to the exit all the while keeping a guiding hand on him. Kurama followed closely behind in utter silence. Throughout all his years he had never seen his friend look so fragile, so broken, so betrayed. Every fibre of his being was telling him to go back and threaten the council into submission. Only the knowledge that Naruto would actively fight him if he did held him back.

"You know… even though we knew it was hopeless I thought just maybe I'd done enough. Maybe they'd realize that all I ever wanted was to help people and make sure that everyone had a chance to live a good and honest life. I thought that maybe, just maybe they'd realize what they were doing wrong and repent so we could come to some kind of agreement to help all the people who had been wronged. I guess even at 67 I'm still a kid." Naruto slowly let out all of his emotion. Everything he had worked for held against him, all of the energy he had invested drained out of him. The utter emptiness threatened to consume him until Sasuke grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him to face his old friend.

"Don't you worry dobe." He almost sobbed, the beginning of tears forming in his eyes "I found a place where you can finally live a good life. You can relax, chase dreams or do whatever you want. I did everything I could to find a place where you could be happy… Just promise me you'll try to be happy." Sasuke once again broke down on his friend's shoulder. Naruto once again embraced his friend as his own eyes started to water.

"I promise." He replied quietly. He wondered if he could turn back time if he would make different choices, but even now he stood by every decision that he had made however disastrous the end. He heard the sound of footsteps and looked to his side to see Konohamaru walking out of the building.

"Nīchan?" Konohamaru softly questioned. An unspoken question that Naruto heard without it needing to be said.

"I'll be alright Konohamaru. It is just the start of a new adventure… I'll go give this new place hell!" Naruto joked to attempt to lighten the mood of his student and long time friend. He knew that Konohamaru had tried his best to stop this. He had offered trade concessions, land, favors and everything in between to try and win one of the three votes to his side. It just hadn't been enough.

"I'm going to find you a way back home Nīchan. When I do, you come back to me all right!" The elderly Konohamaru demanded. Even now it felt like he was the crying kid he remembered all those years ago. Naruto smiled a warm and loving smile at his dear friend.

"You don't waste your whole life trying to find me a way back you hear? Just know that if you guys ever need me I'll be there for you. I'll do my best to make sure Kurama and Shu don't break anything wherever they are sending me!" Naruto continued to try and lighten Konohamaru's inconsolable mood. Yet with that seemingly innocuous joke Konohamaru let out a chuckle.

"Between trying to keep those two behaved and trying to convince those morons to change their mind I can't quite say which of us has the harder job." He joked back. Kurama let out a low and unserious growl.

"This kid being able to make me do anything? Ha! Here I was thinking that your humor would be as bad as the Third's." Kurama fired back. Finally the group shared in a moment of laughter and the tension begin to lift. Naruto basked in the warmth of their friendship and tried to avoid the fear of what his life would be once he lost it. After a while of basking in the much needed afterglow of a happy moment Sasuke turned to Naruto.

"It is time to go Naruto." He said softly. Words so soft because of some primal notion that if they were quiet enough they would somehow be able to avoid breaking this moment.

"Ok," Naruto replied.


	3. Where There is Smoke

**_Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to RWBY or Naruto. I am sorry if you were under the impression that I did._**

 ** _Hello again friends and compatriots. Welcome to chapter 3 of OFNT. We've had two Debby downers of chapters so we get to lighten the mood slightly. Something I want to preemptively head off is the change of tone in Naruto's demeanor for this chapter. Understand that the point of this story is not to make him broody all the time, but we are looking to see Naruto recover and learn to accept people back into his life and the difficulties that causes him. He gets along with his bijuu like old friends, and on the shallow side he will probably quickly make acquaintances with the RWBY cast. However, deepening those relationships is going to be one of the prime drivers of this story as it continues. Naruto will be going through a journey of self discovery primarily, interactions with Salem's faction will be a secondary driver. With that I introduce Chapter 3 of An Old Fox's New Trick_** _._

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

 **Where There is Smoke**

Naruto strolled through the streets of Vale with a confident gait to his step. For the first time in a long time he was excited to actually do something. He scratched his head guiltily realizing that as far as his promise to make sure he found happiness he wasn't exactly doing the best job so far. _That stops today though! I'm going to ace this test, get into school and finally be cool!_ Naruto beamed internally.

… _I felt sorry for you when you were forced to leave the Elemental Nations. I thought the sorrow might actually break you. Yet here we are one year later and your grand plan is something as banal as going to school. If I could go back in time and take back ever feeling the slightest bit of pity for you I would._ Kurama groaned mentally at Naruto as he plodded alongside him down the road. Naruto stuck his tongue out at his companion.

 _I'm so sorry I thought I'd actually do something I found fun. You're right, we should have continued meditating in the forest and gathering information for another year. That was a hoot and a half for the first one right? Or maybe you were hoping we'd take over the world and see if anyone could stop us!_ Naruto snarked at his companion.

 _Naruto you have the best ideas! Let's do that! I haven't killed anyone in ages. If we declared ourselves supreme rulers then surely someone interesting to kill would come along!_ Shukaku giggled maniacally inside Naruto's head. The Shinobi gave an exasperated sigh having become all too used to dealing with Shukaku after having him sealed inside for the past year.

 _Shu I thought we got over your need to kill people! We've been working on it for 40 odd years now!_ Naruto berated the Racoon. Shukaku did nothing but giggle more.

 _I've gotten over it NaruNaru! Just because I don't feel the need to kill people doesn't mean I don't enjoy it though… you never said I had to stop doing that._

 _Kid, I've reconsidered. Give me back bloodthirsty, mad, and mentally unstable Shukaku. This docile housepet makes me want to retch._ Kurama jokingly begged. At least Naruto hoped he was joking. Bizarre as Shu's nickname for him was he quite preferred it to him convincing him to kill people on a day to day basis like what happened with Gaara.

 _Lighten up Kurama. This is the first human since Tousan that Shukaku has actually managed to get along with. If we want to be optimistic and look at this as a fresh start for Naruto-boy then it is almost like a fresh start for him as well._ Gyūki chastised Kurama. Though the eight and nine tails had long since gotten past their dislike of each other it didn't stop them from bickering like 8 year old brothers.

 _Yeah yeah whatever you say 8. Just know if you start calling the kid anything that stupid I will personally turn you into calamari._

 _I would like to see you try_

 _I wouldn't even need to try you 8 tailed giant cephalopod._

 _Tousan gave you one more tail, one! And over the millennia you still haven't shut up about it!_

 _Killing each other could be fun too…_ Shukaku interjected gleefully. Naruto once again gave an exasperated sigh at the antics of the three bijuu who chose to come with him. Blocking them out mentally he continued down the street with Kurama following along with him.

When he left the Elemental Nations a year ago these three decided to come with him. He wasn't particularly surprised that Gyūki had chosen to tag along considering how close they had gotten over the years through Bee, but the fact that Shukaku agreed to be resealed to a host was completely out of left field. The remaining 6 bijuu decided to stay behind and had all agreed to lump a little closer together to avoid being taken advantage of again. After the experience with Madara they were hesitant to spread out again without Naruto around. They didn't think there were any people left that could pose a threat to them but a little paranoia never hurt.

Naruto continued wandering towards a bullhead station as he remarked how out of place he looked. _Maybe I should have gotten some different clothes_. He thought to himself with a hint of embarrassment. He was wearing his sage cloak which continued to lightly billow in the wind as he walked. He had to return the Toad Scroll to Ma and Pa when he left the Elemental Nations, but they wanted him to keep his cloak to remember them by. Under threat of having it shredded by Kurama's claws Naruto was reluctantly forced out of his usual training jumper and into some orange sweatpants with a black shirt that had the Uzumaki symbol in orange on the front. Even then his fox companion still complained there was too much orange. _He is almost entirely orange!_ Naruto growled to himself.

 _And I look good. You look like an idiot._ Kurama insulted the blonde Shinobi. Naruto almost kicked the walking fox but he nimbly jumped out of his range. That was probably for the best considering he couldn't imagine a scenario where he started fighting with Kurama in the streets and things went well. After one last sigh Naruto reached the Bullhead station and managed to find one that was departing for Beacon.

"You heading to Beacon kid?" The pilot inquired without even glancing in his direction.

"Yeah, meeting a professor there." Naruto responded briefly. Loading into the bullhead before even being given permission.

"Hang tight then, we're wheels up in 5." The pilot responded. Naruto pondered the phrase considering he was fairly certain bullheads didn't have wheels.

After a short wait and no one other than him boarding the bullhead they made their way to Beacon where he got let off. When he got to the ground he felt a little worse for wear. _Kami that feels weird… I never felt like that flying on Sai's birds._ Naruto complained internally.

 _Less bitching more walking kid. If you're hellbent on going to school again then I'm not going to let you be a dunce like last time. We're showing up to this meeting on time. I'm not dealing with another lifetime of teachers thinking you're an idiot._ Kurama commanded his host, pulling his pant leg with his mouth until Naruto started moving on his own.

 _Come on Kurama I think I have enough life experience at this point to handle a simple school for kids._ Naruto laughed to himself. This would be a piece of cake.

* * *

"You are 3 minutes late to your interview Mr. Uzumaki. Is this the care that we can expect you to show to your tasks should you enter this school? Is being on time to an interview above and beyond the professionalism we can expect from you?" A blonde teacher asked him with a curt voice and a tongue of barbed wire. Naruto physically flinched at her reprimand while trying to drown out Kurama's uproarious laughter.

" _It'll be easy" the kid says. "I've got life experience" he says. I like this one kid, you should try to get on her good side. She might be good for your first romp in the-_

"Mr. Uzumaki are you paying attention!?" The teacher lashed out at him verbally. Kurama snickered verbally from his position wrapped around his shoulder in his 1 tailed form. The teacher's eyes narrowed at the fox that for some reason seemed to be enjoying this.

"Yes Professor! Absolutely 100% entirely focused and concentrated on what you are saying!" Naruto replied quickly. Not wanting to provoke any more ire from this hellcat of a woman. She was holding what he had only recently learned was called a riding crop in her hand and constantly gestured with it like she was two seconds away from mauling him with it. The sight didn't imbue him with an overly large sense of confidence in his situation.

"Good. You'll be meeting with Professor Ozpin to conduct your interview right away. The interview is largely done on his own terms but you can expect to have to submit to an aura test, a semblance review and a possible spar between a student of the school." The professor lectured to him while continuing to walk at a brusque pace. They eventually reached an elevator where she keyed something into a keypad before it opened.

 _Kami this technology still surprises me. I know we had made advances back in the Elemental Nations before I left, but I guess I just never really got to see much of them. Even then I don't think they were like this._ Naruto thought to himself. He then looked to the teacher and steeled his resolve.

"I'm sorry Professor, but I feel like we've gotten off to a bad start. I just wanted to apologize and say I'm absolutely going to take this seriously dattebayo!" Naruto grinned at the teacher. _KILL ME! I THOUGHT I GOT RID OF THAT YEARS AGO!_ Naruto internally bashed his head against a wall after hearing that childish phrase of his come back. He could hear all three bijuu laughing at him. Despite his inner embarrassment the teacher seemed to… well it wasn't a smile by any means, but he supposed her lips appeared to be in a less tight frown. _Hey that's gotta count for something_.

"Just make sure you take this seriously, it is very unusual for the headmaster to conduct an interview on someone with such a lack of qualifications. I hope you're sure you are ready for the rigors of this school." When the professor replied with her harsh voice it sounded slightly less harsh. At least Naruto thought that it did. He couldn't exactly discount wishful thinking at this point though.

After what felt like a lengthy travel upwards he finally followed the professor as she disembarked into a large office. One desk was at the right and he assumed that was where he would find this Professor Ozpin. However upon squinting his eyes just to be sure he came to a realization.

 _There is no one there._ He remarked simply to himself. The professor that led him in lightly bent her riding crop between both her hands. Her teeth seemed to lightly grind together and Naruto could feel her glare piercing through a man who was supposed to be at his desk and yet clearly wasn't.

"Professor Ozpin should be here shortly, why don't you take a seat across from his desk and wait for him to arrive. I shall attempt to locate him for you." The woman seemingly seethed as she opened the elevator door again and proceeded to head down. Naruto shrugged and decided that he might as well take a seat as suggested. About halfway across the office he stopped suddenly as his eyes narrowed.

 _Naruto-boy._ Gyūki cautioned. Quickly tapping into his sage mode (something he had learned to do in mere moments over his long periods of training as he wandered) he quickly noticed a presence behind a wall to his left.

"You know that lady is pretty scary. I wouldn't want to be you when she finds out you were in your office the entire time." Naruto called out as he looked in the direction of the person he detected. He quickly released his sage mode as his pupils returned to normal.

"Interesting that you would call a professor of a school you are applying to scary, but in this instance I can't help but agree with you." The voice called out from behind the wall. The wall itself seemed to open outward like a door as it was pushed by a cane. From behind it came a bespectacled man in a green suit with messy grey hair.

 _I don't get it… what do those glasses do. They are so tiny and so far down on his nose._ Shukaku questioned. If he was in a physical form you could imagine his head actually tilting to the side in confusion. Naruto chuckled at the observation and then proceeded to watch the professor as he walked around and took a seat at the desk. After a moment's pause Naruto also chose to sit down at the chair provided for him. Kurama then jumped up and curled up on his lap and started to pretend to nap.

"So Mr. Uzumaki, what brings you to Beacon? It is not the most normal thing for a student without previous schooling or apprenticeship to decide they want to become a huntsman. What drove you to your decision?" Ozpin asked him.

 _Kid, watch it around this one. I don't like the way he feels._ Kurama cautioned

 _I agree Naruto-boy. This one has the eyes of a predator, don't give him too much to go off of._ Gyūki concurred. If anything seeing the two finally agree on something put Naruto more on edge than anything else.

"Well I grew up by myself without anyone to care for me. It was a pretty rough life and I just wanted to try and help everyone that I could. Sometimes people are down on their luck and just need a hero, you know?" Naruto replied with a grin. Rather than try to lie he figured using the whole truth would make it easier to hide. If this old man didn't see any reason not to trust him than maybe he wouldn't push for any questions he would have to lie about.

The professor smiled back at him giving Naruto a small measure of relief. "So you mentioned in your letter for application. I'm glad to see that wish was genuine. Was there any other reason that you wished to attend?" The professor probed again.

"Ehhh… to be honest I don't really have any friends. I thought this would be nice way to get some." Naruto replied to which the professor raised an eyebrow. Naruto slightly panicked and quickly added "I'm totally serious about the helping people thing though! That is definitely motive number one! I just thought this might be a chance to not be alone."

* * *

 _Something is off about this child_. Ozpin thought to himself as he observed the spiky haired blonde boy with a fox in his lap. _He sounds less like a child confined to a solitary existence and more like one who has loved and lost. Perhaps he lost his friends to the Grimm? Maybe a victim of circumstance?_ Ozpin continued to spin ideas quickly around his head but could come to no conclusions. He then decided to speed this along to save the child any unneeded stress from a prolonged interview.

Most certainly not because he did not want to be caught in Glynda's rampage should she return before he finished.

"Seeking friendship is something we encourage here at Beacon. We believe a team will work better together and weather the physical and mental fatigue better with the support of friendship. I am nothing but glad to hear that you seek things as such." Ozpin allowed the child a smile. "Since I find your motive to be satisfactory we'll next move to the aura and semblance based part of the interview. Have you had your aura unlocked Mr. Uzumaki?"

"Yes sir! Unlocked and versed in it!" Naruto replied with a chipper attitude. Below him the fox's ears flicked.

"Good, good. Now before we proceed to the aura test could you describe your semblance to me? Possibly demonstrate it if it is not dangerous?" Ozpin requested curiously. The child blinked twice and then started to talk.

"Yeah sure. So I have three guardian spirits of my home that allow me to channel their powers, each of them allows me to use different abilities. This fox here is Kurama, he was the first spirit that I… learned to cooperate with. Other than him I work with Gyūki an octopus ox and Shukaku a tanuki." Naruto added on. He then brought his hand to his stomach and two bizarre creatures appeared on the side of each shoulder, each a bit larger than a fist.

Ozpin observed that the Tanuki appeared to be made of sand whereas the… _Is that truly an ox-octopus?_ Ozpin thought to himself as he slightly squinted at the pinkish thing on his right shoulder. _It appears to be missing a horn. I wonder why._ "So if you can have them all of these guardians out at one time, why do you not?" Ozpin questioned the boy.

"Well to be honest it is because Gyūki and Shukaku don't like being out too often, they find it exhausting. Kurama on the other hand basically demands it. He only returns to his realm when absolutely necessary." Naruto answered sheepishly while rubbing the back of his head. Ozpin arched an eyebrow at the boy inquisitively. Picking up on his intent Naruto added. "Sometimes when we need to get groceries or go into certain places a large fox stalking about can cause some problems." The fox opened one eye to look at the boy and then appeared to scoff.

 _Well that is interesting. I wonder if these guardians are sentient._ "Well I won't continue to bore you for details, assuming a normal or above aura level I believe you would be a fantastic addition to Beacon Academy." Ozip smiled at the child who grinned back happily. He truly felt like the boy's smile would be contagious at the school. Maybe he would even make Glynda smile. _At least I can dream of such a world._ Ozpin sighed to himself.

Ozpin then stood up and opened a drawer to his his desk and pulled out what looked like a simple glass and metal weight scale. He walked around his desk and set it down next to Naruto and proceeded to sit back down. "Now what you need to do is stand on that scale and attempt to flare your aura out if you can. That should give us a measure of how much you have." Ozpin informed him. Naruto started to look nervous and gave a small chuckle.

"What exactly am I shooting for here? You know, so I can be at the top of my class and stuff." Naruto laughed in a manner that seemed forced. Ozpin observed the boy quizzically.

 _Is he worried that his aura is too low? Is most of his aura stored in these guardians of his and they merely grant it to him? His semblance is so bizarre I'm not sure if this will be an accurate measure of his prowess._ "An average student in their first year score between 100-200 on this scale. The upper level students would average in between 400-500. An average high level huntsman will hover around two thou-" Ozpin was cut off as Naruto stepped on the scale, it sparked violently and then the display dimmed out completely.

* * *

 _SHIT!_ Naruto swore mentally. Kurama smiled a toothy grin from his position on the chair Naruto had vacated previously and Shukaku was laughing hysterically from his shoulder.

 _I really don't know what you expected standing on an energy measuring scale with 2 bijuu on your shoulder kid._ Kurama playfully chastised his partner. Naruto looked to Gyūki and Shukaku and facepalmed.

 _I forgot you two were there, shit!_ He swore again. Shukaku's unabated laughter seemingly renewed as Naruto twisted his seal causing both of the bijuu to disappear from his shoulder. He then looked up to Ozpin who was eyeing him curiously. _Cmon, think of something to say Naruto. 67 years of experience, you got this!_

"It seems that this scale was defective." Naruto declared authoritatively. His face seeming to be the picture of confidence. Below the surface however…

 _AAAAAAGGGHHH! The best excuse I could come up with was "it must be broken!?" I really should have spent more of my time learning to lie or at least talking with people. You'd think I was still a kid!_

"Indeed." Ozpin stated simply. Eyeing Naruto with almost unrestrained curiosity at this point. "Perhaps we will try another then." Ozpin reached for another scale that appeared identical to the first one and passed it to Naruto. Naruto gingerly reached out for it and gently set it on the ground next to the first one. Naruto stared at it as if the scale was challenging him.

 _Well I never back down from a challenge! Restrain all of your chakra you three. I'm going to try and lower my chakra flow as much as possible._ Naruto started to deeply breathe in and slowly breathe out. After a few reps of this he stood on the scale. He let out a cheer as the scale didn't basically explode this time.

He was less enthused when a string of question marks appeared on the scale.

"That would mean the scale is unable to accurately measure your aura. Have you taken an aura measurement test before?" Ozpin asked Naruto with eyes narrowed at him. Naruto was beginning to think he was drawing far too much of this professor's curiosity.

"Nope! Never done this before! Not a single time. What if we just give me a test run in the school and if I don't perform well you can always just throw me out!" Naruto suggested desperately. Ozpin once again arched the dreaded eyebrow and once again reached into a compartment in his desk.

"Let's try one more test before we get to that point. Here, let's try this." Ozpin pulled his arm out of his desk to reveal a scale, but unlike the last two this one appeared to be larger, heavier and more sturdily built. "Try once more with this one." Ozpin asked as he past the scale to Naruto.

 _Okay Naruto-boy. We're going to try to actively contain your chakra this time. We'll try to get it as far down as possible so we can pass this test normally._ Gyūki informed Naruto. Naruto nodded physically and took a deep breath. With great anticipation he stepped onto the scale and nervously watched as a series of numbers flicked on the display like a slot machine. After a few moments Naruto almost leapt in joy when he saw that finally this scale had displayed a number!

 _Good job you guys, we did it! Good job holding back._ Naruto praised his Juubi. Kurama laughed and it sounded like air being pushed from his mouth. Shukaku started another giggling fit and Gyūki face palmed in Naruto's mental landscape.

 _Check the number kid._ Kurama suggested, still laughing.

Naruto leaned down and squinted at the number. _Huh, that's weird. From here it looks like it is saying-_

"Nine thousand and one" Ozpin stated calmly as he looked at a handheld device that was clearly somehow attached to the scale's readings.

Naruto's thoughts started to race at a thousand miles a minute. _Oh Kami, he said the average score was two thousand for their fully trained. I JUST QUADRUPLED THAT!_ Naruto internally panicked. Kurama and Shukaku both continued to laugh in their own way.

 _Quadruple and a half NaruNaru. You think you could do math better at this point._ Shukaku teased.

 _I was trying to make myself feel even slightly better Shu! Thank you for ruining that!_ Naruto seethed at his tanuki companion who couldn't help but beam back at him. Searching desperately for an excuse Naruto said the first thing that came to mind.

"I guess my semblance must affect the scales somehow," Naruto chimed in helpfully with a smile on his face. _That has to work! From all the information I've gathered over the past year I don't think anyone has a clue how semblances work. If I blame that then I should be home scott free!_

"That is completely possible." The Professor stated simply. Naruto gave an internal sigh of relief. "However perhaps your fox guardian could attempt to stand on the scale." Ozpin asked what appeared to be a questioned, but his tone stated it as more of a command.

"That sounds like an absolutely terrible idea." Naruto replied all together too quickly.

"And why is that?"

"He is a being of pure energy and aura, if I did that to your scale I really don't want to know what will happen if he gets on it." Naruto logically defended himself. Surely the professor didn't want to break his fancy scale.

"Humor me." Naruto's hopes and dreams crash landed on an island with no hope of rescue. He was about to rally another defense when Kurama lithely stepped down onto the scale for naught but two seconds. He then got off of it and curled back into a ball on the chair. One might have been confused why he left the scale so quickly when it took around 10 seconds to calibrate Naruto's own aura. Upon observation though the answer was quite simple.

The scale was on fire.

* * *

Naruto sighed the heaviest sigh he could remember sighing for the better part of his lifetime. Now laying on a bed inside a single dorm room the headmaster had decided to let him reside in until the school term began tomorrow. He would have started trying to relax if being behind closed doors didn't lead to Kurama's laughter escalating to a dull roar now that he no longer had to pretend to be a simple fox.

"Holy shit kid, that was the funniest thing that I've seen in the past century. I can't remember a time you've panicked so bad!" Kurama teased jovially as he was still wrought with fits of laughter. Naruto scowled and threw a pillow at the fox who was curled up on the floor rug. He easily dodged out of the way but it felt cathartic anyway.

"I thought he was going to throw me out then and there! Instead he goes 'Welcome to Beacon Academy Mr. Uzumaki.', gives me a key card for this room and then sends me off! What the hell is this place!?" Naruto vented his frustrations freely, having already set up a fūinjutsu seal on the wall to soundproof his room. He also had checked for cameras and listening devices because he didn't put it past that old man to have a few. Thankfully his search had turned up empty so he could try relax.

 _He most certainly is an odd one. He felt incredibly intelligent and was very shrewd. I couldn't get a read on him myself._ Gyūki grumbled grumpily. He didn't appreciate the fact that someone was able to so thoroughly conceal their intentions from him. He prided himself on his perceptiveness.

 _8 is right. Even with my ability to sense emotions i didn't get anything off the man. He almost felt inhuman._ Kurama added, equally miffed that he couldn't get anything off the professor.

 _He looks really fun. We should ki-I mean fight him!_ Shukaku added in joyfully.

 _I would like to revisit the motion to revert Shukaku back to his previous self._ Kurama grumbled. _If I meet anyone else with his level of sunny disposition I'm going to eat them._

 _Let's just go to bed and wait until the remainder of the students arrive tomorrow. I'm fucking done with this day. Besides the age to enlist at this academy is seventeen. I'm sure the students here are more well rounded than the kids back at the academy._ Naruto replied. He turned off the lights, and hopped into bed. Kurama nestled up against him and they both quickly fell asleep.

It was on the morrow that Naruto was going to be reminded how utterly wrong a person could possibly be.


	4. Dobe

**_Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to RWBY or Naruto. A wise man once said that some truths need not be spoken, but that man was not aggressively accosted by lawyers._**

 ** _Hello readers and followers! I just posted this earlier today and we are already up to 10 followers and 13 favorite! Gotta say that although it might not be the largest number I'm excited to have a chance to show you guys a good time. I'm going to take this time to answer a few questions I've gotten already to clear up any confusion people are having. I totally understand how OOC interactions can ruin immersion in a story._**

 ** _Q: Why does 8 tails call Naruto 'Naruto-boy' That was Ma and Pa's thing._**

 ** _A: Thank you for noticing! You are indeed correct because that was exactly where I got the name from. Although not revealed yet in the story Gyuki stayed with the toad pair on_ _Myōboku_** ** _after B's passing. He was pretty inconsolable and ended up finding meaning in protecting B and his collective student. An added note was that 8 tails knew that Naruto wouldn't be passing away like B did. He is scared of feeling a loss like that again._**

 ** _Q: Is there a pairing?_**

 ** _A: so many points to make. 1) I couldn't get 4 chapters in without being asked about a pairing. C'mon guys... Jokes aside I am undecided on that. Let me know via review or PM any pairing/reasoning that you would want and I'll take it in stride. 2) If there is no reaction or a negative reaction to a pairing there just might not be one. Naruto is in his 60's in this story. Some people are gonna find it nasty, some people are gonna say you are as mature as you act. Nothing is decided yet, but please let me know your thoughts and opinions. I enjoy responding to you guys._**

 ** _Q: Despite his past Naruto doesn't feel very broken, what's up with that?_**

 ** _A: So for this one you need to distinguish between the bijuu and everyone else. Naruto gets along with the bijuu fine because they are the only friends he brought over from his life. He spent the past 50 years befriending these three and they chose to come with him in his exile. Befriending mortal humans who may or may not betray him is going to be a big struggle for our hero. Here is to rooting for him to do it!_**

 ** _With that all being said I want to thank you all again for reading as far as you have. Feel free to PM me any questions or concerns. Heck, if you just drop a line to say 'hi' I'll probably drop you one back. I do this for the feedback honestly. Writing the story does nothing but cure my crippling boredom x.x_**

 ** _With that being said we step into our next chapter of the story._**

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

 **Dobe**

 _That is unnecessarily large,_ Kurama commented from his perch atop Naruto's shoulder. Naruto couldn't help but agree as the massive airship touched down. He was seated legs crossed atop the school's roof in sage mode. A few birds had flown down to attempt to greet him but were immediately scared off by the lump of fur occupying their intended perch.

 _NaruNaru, why are you scouting these little people? Do you think the tiny ones will help us conquer the world? Ooooh you intend them to be our foot soldiers! . . . but wait couldn't you just make clones? I'm confused again._ Shukaku continued to attempt to understand the machinations of his host in earnest while the other three felt an intense wave of exasperation.

 _Shu, we really have to work on your people skills. You know you might have to actually talk to some of these people if I introduce you? You can't be telling them you want to kill them, or subjugate them, or any other number of insane things I can imagine you saying._ Naruto scolded his tanuki friend. Kurama gave a breathy laugh atop his shoulder.

 _I've got to hand it to you kid. Sixty-seven years later and you can still manage to surprise me._ Naruto preened at the perceived praise from Kurama. _How a human can live that long and still be so delusional is really a supreme work of effort. Maybe you should write a book detailing exactly how one can reach and maintain such levels of naivete._ Naruto growled at his fox and punched him in the head. Kurama then lashed out and clawed his face. In a matter of moments the two were wrestling back and forth on the rooftop in a mix of tooth, fist, and claw.

 _Naruto-boy… Act your age and focus on what you came here to do. Kurama is a lost cause, don't waste your breath._ Gyūki scolded the shinobi. The fox and ninja comically stopped mid grapple, grunted and then disengaged from each other to resume their previous position looking over the school grounds. Looking over the school grounds. _All right good. Now start searching for anyone who might be a good friend for Naruto-boy._

Kurama scoffed atop his jinchūriki's shoulder but nonetheless narrowed his eyes at the airship, waiting for the passengers to begin disembarking. Not a moment later a large hangar door opened and a ramp led down off the ship. Kurama flicked his tail disinterestedly as he continued to watch kid after kid walk out of the airship. He gave a bored yawn until he was rewarded with a sight that made him break out into a toothy grin.

 _Blonde bombshell straight ahead. She looks like she'd be the perfect friend for our little kid._ Kurama suggested deviously. Naruto leveled a glare at his partner.

 _Any reason that you are suggesting this other than how she looks?_

 _Gaki you wound me!_ Naruto's glare towards his fox partner did not recede until the fox broke into a small chuckle. _Jokes aside I sense something in her that feels familiar to me… much lesser of course, but familiar._ Kurama's tail began to brush back and forth across Naruto's shoulders in vague interest. Naruto considered it high praise that Kurama would even begin to slightly equate an individual to himself.

 _I like the one with Kushina's hair._ Gyūki stated. Naruto focused on an armored woman with her hair drawn up into a ponytail. His pulse quickened slightly, which really should have been imperceptible to anyone.

 _Looks like the kid likes her too._ Kurama teased while prodding Naruto's cheek with his sinuous tail. A light blush took over his face as he avoided Kurama's gaze at all costs. Kurama continued to laugh at his expense while Gyūki regarded Naruto with a fondness an uncle would for his favorite nephew.

 _I like that one! She looks fun. Do you think her blood is tasty?_ Shukaku mentally directed Naruto's gaze to one orange haired girl in a skirt. Naruto almost panicked as he thought he saw her use Hiraishin to instantly move from side to side of a certain boy dressed in green. He sighed in relief when he realized she was just moving VERY fast.

 _Gaki so help me if you so much as talk to that girl I will eat her._ Kurama grumbled. Shukaku started to berate the fox about a lack of taste in people when someone caught Naruto's eye.

 _That girl in the black and red, does it look like she is getting bullied by that white girl?_ Naruto asked the three bijuu. Kurama smirked and started to tease him again.

 _Kid you should be more like me. You humans are so pathetic that I don't see color, you're all just the same-... that girl is actually entirely white._ Naruto chuckled at Kurama's realization. Her hair, her dress, her sheathe, and her skin were entirely nothing but white. Upon closer inspection there was a collar to her jacket that was lined in red. _A hundred_ _ryō says she is an ice princess._ Kurama gambled.

 _She does look incredibly haughty from here. These kids don't look like they've been taught proper respect for others._ Gyūki groused unhappily. He may be the most agreeable of the present bijuu, but even after his long partnership with Bee he was still rather strict where dignity was concerned. After a few moments more of what looked like a one-sided dressing down of the black and red girl Naruto decided to get to his feet and jumped down the building. He cautiously made sure to avoid cameras because he wasn't quite sure if jumping from buildings was normal or not yet.

 _Gaki, they've been here less than 5 minutes, are you already going to stick your nose where it doesn't belong?_ Kurama agitatedly chided the spiky blonde that was now in brusque motion towards the pair of girls.

 _Can't just let some young kid get bullied… hits too close to home._ Naruto thought solemnly. Kurama's teasing abated as he stretched himself while still across Naruto's shoulder.

 _Well let's hurry up then kid. It looks like the princess is waving around some of that dust stuff and Red's about to blow._ Naruto looked at the younger looking girl and was confused when he didn't see any type of anger across her face. Things made a lot more sense when he realized the girl looked like she was about to sneeze due to the rainbow of dust floating around her. Reacting faster than his brain could process he held out his right palm towards the cloud of dust and blinked. All of the dust particles quickly and carefully made their way into his hand forming a small sized ball.

His action garnered the attention of both the girls as they looked to see where the dust had shot off to. The white girl gave him an impressive frown whereas the red and black girl just eyed him nervously. He waved his free hand at the two girls and made his way over to them. The ball of dust remained equidistant from his now palm up hand as he walked forward.

"Hey there! The name's Naruto! Sorry to step in and bother you both but you were getting dangerously close to exploding." Naruto introduced himself with a cheeky grin on his face. Much to his amazement the white girl's frown got even deeper.

"Explode? We were in no danger of anything happening until you came along and interfered. I hope you know how to properly handle that dust!" The white girl scolded him. Naruto had to blink twice in hopes that the stupidity would go away and this would be revealed to be some form of joke he didn't get. After a momentary pause where no such luck ensued he carefully pressed forward.

"If you look really closely you'll see that there is fire dust in this ball. Red here was about a moment away from sneezing which would have likely ignited the first dust. Once the fire dust ignited the rest of it was sure to go off afterwards. I know we're new and all but you should at least have studied some dust properties before attending dattebayo." As Naruto mentally punched himself for his ever present verbiage the white girl looked ready to assist in a more physical sense.

"Do you not know who I am!? I am Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, and I will have you know I know far more about dust than you do!" Weiss' voice was so annoying to Naruto he was having trouble focusing on anything. Until this moment he didn't think it was possible to hear a spoiled and privileged upbringing just by the sound of a voice. When he finally managed to work his way past that and examined what she was saying he was hit with a realization.

"It all makes sense…" Naruto said so quietly the two girls had trouble hearing him. "All the times he called me that this must have been what he felt like." Sure he was nothing like the girl, but the sheer frustration at someone so obstinate must have been the same.

"Who called you what?" Weiss seethed at the blonde boy.

"Nothing you need to worry about Dobe." Naruto said with a small smile across his face.

"What did you just call me?" The girl inquired, her rage temporarily lessened by her curiosity.

"Why don't you go look it up, I would hate to ruin the surprise." Naruto teased with a grin. A frustrated Weiss leveled him one last glare and then stormed off. Unsure of how to properly dispose of his dust ball he looked around for a trash can. He quickly reconsidered his idea to put explosives in a public place and took out a storage scroll from a satchel on his side, depositing the dust ball into it.

"Wow, that's so cool!" When he looked up the black and red girl had quickly invaded his personal space and was on her tippy toes looking at his storage scroll. Naruto quickly closed the scroll and deposited it back in his satchel. The girl then looked up to him and spoke again. "Your eyes look cool too! Is that part of your semblance?" The girl's silver eyes looked into his own, looking closely at them he could almost make out the reflection of hims-

 _Shit, Rinnegan._ Naruto quickly chastised himself. He blinked his eyes and they turned back to their normal ocean blue. _Time to talk my way out of this one._ "Erm yeah… kind of. Whenever I use that ability you just saw my eyes change. Not really sure why though!" Naruto assured her with a blatant lie. "Sorry if I interrupted anything. You just looked like you needed a hand with Dobe."

The girl quickly raised her hands and shook them in denial. "Nononononono! I totally needed a hand, lots of hands! I'm ummm… Not the best at socializing and all." She nervously looked down at her feet as she twiddled one black boot into the ground embarrassedly. After a few seconds she apprehensively looked back to the blonde boy to see a warm and soothing smile.

"Don't worry about it! I spent most of my life traveling without talking to people. Even if you're not the best at socializing I probably won't know enough to notice," He laughed in joking self-deprecation. Unable to deal with the girl's adorable happiness without blushing slightly he coughed and pressed on. "So like I said my name is Naruto."

"Oh! My name is Ruby, Ruby Rose. It's nice to meet you Naruto!" The girl beamed enthusiastically at him. Naruto chuckled at her energy and was about to say something when she quickly spit out. "CanIseeyourweapon!?" She said it so quickly he had to try to figure out what she said.

 _Right, the hunters here all tend to fight with a single weapon._ Naruto remembered from his information gathering. He found it strange that they weren't versed in multiple tools like in the Elemental Nations, but learned to roll with it. "Yeah, I fight mainly with kunai knives. You can use them like daggers and throw them! They are pretty cool." Naruto grabbed one from his satchel and spun it around before grabbing it and sinking to a combat stance. Ruby practically glowed at him.

"Ohmygosh that is so cool! Exotic, yet simple and versatile. Do you wanna hear about my weapon?" Ruby asked with equal parts excitement and trepidation. Naruto laughed and realized that her zealousness towards her weapon must have gotten her into some awkward situations in the past.

"Hell yeah! Show me what you got Ruby," Naruto cheered her on. Responding to the enthusiasm the shinobi showed she reached behind her back and twirled her weapon as it deployed. Slamming the the bottom into the ground to show it off in its full glory. Naruto balked as the giant red weapon reminded him of a certain masochistic nutbag. Recovering quickly he praised the weapon. "That is pretty cool. Not many people know how to fight with a scythe. Now that is an exotic weapon!" Naruto fixed her with a cheerful grin. Ruby blushed slightly and proceeded with an explanation.

"My uncle taught me how to use one. It is also a customizable high-impact sniper rifle!" She bragged, clearly pleased with herself.

"So it's also a gun?" Naruto supplied questioningly.

"Yup!" She said with a loud pop on the 'p'. The popping noise obviously disturbed Kurama from the nap he must have been taking because he decided to open his mouth in a large yawn. Ruby realized that the thing draped across Naruto's shoulders was in fact an animal. She almost swooned at the sight of the beautiful orange fox. "Is the fox your pet?"

"Oh absolutely, furball here is practical-" He was cut off by Kurama clawing the side of his face causing three bloody gashes to appear. Ruby let out a scared "Eep!" and Naruto glowered at his fox companion. The gashes on his face healed within the next few seconds. Looking back to the concerned/scared Ruby Naruto could only smile bashfully. "He really doesn't like to be called a pet. Just think of him as my partner for both our sakes." Kurama snorted, obviously not content with the description. Thankfully he wasn't offended enough to claw his face again either.

Naruto looked around and saw that nearly all of the students had already come and gone. He remembered hearing they were supposed to be attending some sort of entrance speech from what he had gathered before even making his way to Beacon.

"C'mon Ruby, we're supposed to be heading to some fancy speech for the new students," Naruto grabbed her hand and lightly pulled her in tow towards the large congregation of energy he felt. Kurama observed the look of the girl in tow and saw her blushing furiously. He snickered from his position atop Naruto's shoulder.

 _I take back what I said about this plan. Watching this kid bumble about social relationships with his obliviousness is going to be a blast._ Kurama grinned evilly.

* * *

Naruto stood in a large hall filled to the brim with kids. True to what he expected even in sage mode he felt no one powerful enough he would deem a threat. The only exception to that rule was the grey haired man in a green suit who was beginning to approach the standing microphone. Whereas everyone else energy so low it was utterly nonthreatening, that man had none at all. Regardless how intensely Naruto or the bijuu focused their efforts on him he remained a puzzle box that refused to open. Noticing that Weiss was gesturing at him while talking to Ruby and the blonde that Kurama had mentioned, he began to move towards them. Before he could even start the motion of a step though Ozpin had begun speaking.

"I'll...keep this brief. You have traveled here today in search of knowledge _—_ to hone your craft and acquire new skills. And when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy, in need of purpose _—_ direction. You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step. In doing so it is possible that every one of you might find your own heading," Ozpin stated. True to his word his initiation speech was thankfully short. Even through his years Naruto still held a disdain for authority figures droning at him for what seemed like eons.

"You'll gather in the ballroom tonight; your initiation will begin in the morning. Be ready. You are dismissed." Glynda spoke into the microphone. Naruto was thinking of a way to either loosen up or prank her into a frenzy when his devious planning was interrupted.

"Naruto!" Ruby called out to him to shake him from his thoughts. He looked over to the small girl and smiled. He approached the group of three girls with Kurama walking lazily by his side, clearly bored with napping. He approached Ruby and casually dropped his hand onto her hair to rustle it about. She scowled at him until she saw his giant smile. After that she couldn't find it in herself to even be upset.

"Awww! Does little Rubes have a boyfriend already?" The blonde cooed at the red cloaked girl. Ruby's face quickly lit up to match said cloak's hue before she turned and started banging her fists against the blonde's arm.

"Yaaaaaaaaaang!" Ruby groaned embarrassedly. She then turned to try to re-introduce Weiss to Naruto to find that the girl has already left and was nowhere to be seen. She turned back to Naruto to see that he had already started talking.

"If she does it isn't me. We just met outside when the dobe was giving her a hard time," Naruto corrected diplomatically. That was a misconception he had absolutely zero desire to see spread about. Yang raised her eyebrow in question and Ruby quickly added.

"He means Weiss." Ruby clued Yang in. She made an O with her mouth and then proceeded to walk towards Naruto.

"Name's Yang! Thanks for helping my little sis out. Maybe sometime we'll meet up and I'll have to reward you for it," she teased seductively with her right hand on his chest. She looked into his eyes to see him squirm, blush, panic or any combination of the three. What she did get was something she didn't expect, though.

Naruto gave her a nonplussed grin and simply said, "She seemed innocent and she was in trouble. There is nothing you need to thank me for. I just don't like seeing people get bullied." Yang blinked slowly, trying to process the innocuous reaction. She wasn't cocky or anything, she just knew she turned boys' heads. A is A, gravity pulls things down and she was hot enough to make boys uncomfortable. Seeing a boy her own age defying the the basic laws of Remnant put her thought process on halt. For a few seconds she just stood there looking into his eyes and seeing his smile.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!" A much angrier Ruby yelled as she pounded her fists into her sister's back. The blonde awoke from her thoughts and pulled herself away from Naruto, who regarded the two with a confused expression.

 _What is with these girls?_ Naruto thought to himself. Gyūki wondered if he was really that dense, Shukaku was playing in the mindscape making sandcastles, and Kurama was silently laughing. Yang eyed him quickly before breaking back out into an unabashed grin.

"You're alright Whiskers. I can tell the three of us are going to be friends," Yang stated.

"Yeah!" Ruby enthusiastically supported. They both looked to Naruto again to see his cheery grin. Instead all they saw was a look of great pain, an untold suffering beyond his years, and a palpable regret that nearly choked the air. They all descended into an awkward silence that felt like it spanned for minutes despite lasting only seconds. It would have gone on even longer if the fox by his side didn't nip at Naruto's hand, causing him to stir from his thoughts.

When Naruto stirred from his memories he saw the two girls looking at him in sadness. Yang seemed to be concerned about him, but more so he sensed a protectiveness of Ruby radiating from her. When he turned to look at Ruby he saw an intense fear. He saw a little girl who was afraid to be left alone and the regret of thinking she had made a mistake. Naruto powered through his own mental torpor and gave them both a sad smile.

"I'd love to try to be your friends," He said softly. Ruby's mood lightened considerably but Yang continued to stare him down. A few awkward seconds passed before Ruby zipped up to him.

"Don't you worry Naruto! We're totally going to be friends! We'll be the best of friends! You talked to me about my weapon, you helped me with Weiss, and you seem super cool and nice! You're not going to regret this," Ruby said with a near fervent desperation.

 _Kami, I'm an idiot,_ Naruto thought sadly to himself, looking at the little girl who was trying so hard to make sure he didn't reject her. He took a deep breath and then broke out into a grin and rustled her hair again.

"Don't you worry bout a thing Ruby, just some personal stuff choked me up for a second there. You've got nothing to prove to me. Matter of fact I already think you're pretty awesome!" He gave her his trademark grin again which she responded with in turn. Yang exhaled in the background and leveled a smile at Naruto.

'Thank you', she mouthed to him. Naruto gave her a thumbs up with the hand that wasn't still rustling Ruby's hair (an action she surprisingly wasn't resisting) and then looked down to see Kurama pulling at his pant leg.

"Oh right, ballroom. Let's get going you two. I don't know if you've met Glynda yet but I promise you do not want to be on her bad side," Naruto shivered, recalling the verbal lashing he had received at her hands. The girls both laughed at his reaction and they started to make their way towards the ballroom. Naruto sighed with a little mirth and tried to correct himself.

 _I can make a different life here. I just have to try._


	5. Because it is Right

**_Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to RWBY or Naruto. If I did the first thing I would do with my endless money is buy a cheese cuber. You think I'm joking? Those things cost hundreds!_**

 ** _Hello again friends and compatriots. Welcome to the next chapter of An Old Fox's New Trick. within a day I have already seen a thousand views and 20 or so people favoriting or following my work. I'm stoked to see that we're getting a few more of you interested in this story. Now as per my new ritual I'm going to start answering some questions people have asked to give everyone a better idea of what exactly is going on._**

 ** _Q: Where is Jaune? Please don't get rid of Jaune I love Jaune._**

 ** _A: Buddy... There is a sad truth in writing that we all have to learn to deal with. That is the reality that having more than one main character is way too hard to write well. Jaune is actually my favorite character in all of the RWBY series. My defense of that is because Jaune is the dynamic piece to the rest of the static board that Oum had set up. Ruby is the perceived main character and her personality does not move at all. (spoilers) In season 4 where her interference in the fight against Tyrion almost killed Qrow they had a chance for her to realize her impotence and give her an actual reason to grow as a character. However Qrow thanked her for saving him when she almost got him killed and she didn't seem to internalize that fact. Thus she remained entirely static. Blake is by far my least favorite character in the RWBY show. She is actually one of the reasons I am so excited to be writing this. Blake had learned and then forgotten the lesson of "trust my friends" in basically every single season. It is getting real old that she can't get it to stick. Yang was static until her arm got chopped off, then after she recovered the season ended so we had no evidence of character growth but more of a character recovery. Thank god for Weiss the only character in RWBY to actually do something. TLDR I'm convinced Oum intended Jaune to be the main character of RWBY because he is the most dynamic of the entire cast. However my belief in that means that he can't be part of the Beacon crew. I may fit him in as a side character later, but no dice on MC Jaune._**

 ** _Q: No seriously, who is the pair?_**

 ** _A: Got people messaging and asking who is the pair but no one defending their ship! At this point I'm going to stick him with Weiss to spite you people. That joke probably doesn't make sense to you because you haven't yet read this chapter. Don't worry, you'll find it funny by the end._**

 ** _With that we move forward into Chapter 5. I'll be starting on 6 soon and you can probably expect to see it within the next 24 hours. Seriously though readers talk to me. Would love to hear more feedback from you. It gives me strength! Ruby drinks milk and I drink feedback._**

* * *

 **Chapter 5**

 **Because it is Right**

Naruto sat in the windowsill near the corner of the room. One leg laid straight on the sill itself while the other hung limply off the side. He plucked a sad song known has Huata: Harusame. Trapped within the melancholy of his own thoughts, he didn't even notice the pair amber eyes set on him that were also trapped in sweet remembrance.

 _I remember when mother used to play the shamisen… She would always play me the happiest of songs. I've never heard anything like this before,_ the black haired beauty thought as she continued to stare at the blonde musician in complete unfettered reminiscence.

Even as she was immersed by her memories she couldn't help but realize just how alone the boy looked. She had seen him befriending the red and black girl that was being harassed by the Schnee heiress earlier in the day. She had intended to step in until he decided to save the day. She chuckled remembering how he had called the Schnee 'idiot'. He didn't just call her an idiot, he said it in such a way that he viewed it as her title or name. He didn't just view her as 'an idiot', she was 'the idiot'. That alone was enough to give her a positive view of the spiky blonde haired musician.

What turned a positive inclination into a near fascination was what she saw after the headmaster's speech. The blonde strumpet came onto him fairly hard as 'thanks' for helping her sister. She had rolled her eyes at the time and expected him to gawk at her or throw out some boyish machismo. Instead he looked at her like she was asking him a question in the most basic of rhetoric. _"There is nothing you need to thank me for. I just don't like seeing people get bullied."_

In that moment she wondered if he would have done the same for her. _Of course he would,_ she thought to herself. What she meant was if he would have done the same if she wasn't wearing her bow. A lifetime of persecution had almost fully converted her to misanthropy. She had seen humans treat each other with the noblest of chivalry and then seen those same people look down their nose at a faunus orphan as an animal to be put down. When everything started she was a dreamer hoping that humankind was just misled. After everything she had been through and everything she had sacrificed… she was no longer sure.

"Oooooh! Naruto's got an admirer!" A saccharine voice called out in a singsong tone. She instantly recognized it as the strumpet from earlier. The blonde musician lifted his head and looked at Blake. For a moment she bore the full brunt of an unspeakable melancholy. A pain that transcended the agony she felt. For even in her darkest moments she had been able to run from her pain, or try and fix what was causing her pain. When she looked into those pools of ocean blue she saw a pain that had merely been accepted as part of living. A pain as devastating as her own that the musician must have just considered as much a part of him as his own breathtaking eyes.

"Yang, if you keep thinking every girl that looks at me is an admirer, you're going to start giving me the wrong idea." The blonde chuckled as he picked up the case for his shamisen and zipped it away. The black haired girl blushed and delivered upon the blonde strumpet her most withering of glares. Whether she didn't notice or didn't care was indiscernible as she sauntered towards the musician. She then rested her arm on his shoulder and her face on top of that. She stared eye to eye with him; less than a foot of space between their faces.

"Who says it's the wrong idea, Foxy?" She purred. The musician blinked once and then rolled his eyes at her. He then seemingly looked at the fox who was sprawled across his bedroll for a few moments before he grinned and turned his gaze back to her.

"You are flirting with me to see if I'm interested in Yang the person or Yang the woman," the musician stated flatly causing the strumpet to almost physically reel backwards. He then leaned forward and whispered into her ear at a volume inaudible for anyone but the two blondes and the black haired lady. "Well, it is undoubtedly both." His voice was seductive and playful, with the confidence of a man whispering the exact sweet nothings into the ear of a lady he knew she wanted. The strumpet started to blush fiercely until the musician gave her a cheeky grin and flicked her forehead to move her off his shoulder. After a few moments the strumpet recovered and gave the blonde a happy grin.

"Oh Whiskers, Whiskers, Whiskers… You have no idea what you just started," she teased him back. The musician stuck out his tongue and the two of them shared a bawdy laugh together.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!" a grumpy voice of a young girl pierced through the laughter. The strumpet (who she now knew to be Yang) looked down at the girl in black and red with a grin. The young girl was looking up to Yang giving her the most nonthreatening of puppy dog glares. Yang reached down to mess up the young girl's hair which only proceeded to make the glare given by the young girl even less intimidating than it already was.

"Sorry about them. Ruby and Yang may be sisters, but they seem to go at it like cats and dogs." The musician explained as he sat next to the black haired beauty. "My name is Naruto by the way, sorry for bothering you and all." He smiled sheepishly at her with his rubbing the back of his head embarrassedly.

"Blake, I'm sorry for disturbing your performance… well, I guess I'm sorry for incentivizing someone else in disturbing your performance, more accurately," she laughed quietly. Naruto gave a grin to her as bright and genuine as she had ever seen before.

"Just try to ignore them and maybe they'll go away. I've been trying this whole time but it hasn't been working… here's to hoping though right?"

"Not on your life, Foxy. You don't get to just do that to an innocent little belle like myself and then shirk responsibility for it." Yang fake pouted at Naruto. In response the boy adjacent to her just facepalmed and looked to the ceiling.

"Kami, I wanted nothing but a peaceful school life. Why are you so insistent on throwing this powder keg of a woman into my path!?" He mock cried to the gods. The two blondes shared a look and then started snickering at each other. After the mirth died down Ruby started giving her sister a dressing down about flirting with all of her friends. Naruto leaned down to Blake's ear and quietly whispered a question that made her hair stand up on end. "So why hide behind the bow?"

Blake started to go for her weapon but was almost immediately stopped as his arm wrapped around her entire torso and with a truly impressive feat of strength, he spun her on her ass and quietly flicked both her weapons behind him, out of her reach. Blake was ready to engage in hand to hand when the boy raised both his hands open palmed in the universal symbol of peace.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you. I'm guessing it's a personal thing." He once again rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. "Not the best person at subtly moving through a conversation. I probably could have done that better," he admitted. Taming her fight or flight instincts with sheer force of will Blake was eventually able to respond to him.

"How did you know that!?" She hissed at him.

"Oh, I have the ability to accurately sense… aura, so I could sense your ears pretty clearly underneath your bow." He admitted casually. The way he paused before he said aura made it seem as if he was searching for the word. "Really I was just asking out of curiosity. I have no intention of telling anyone your secret. Because at this point I am fairly certain it is a secret with that reaction." He smiled apologetically. It seemed he truly did not mean to cause her any distress and was just trying to be friendly. Forcing herself to relax Blake exhaled before taking a deep breath to calm herself down.

"People tend to be very racist towards us faunus. They think our animal characteristics make us no different than animals. They think that just bec-" as she was about to begin her tirade she was quickly interrupted by Naruto's grinning face.

"Well those people are stupid. No use thinking too much about it," he said in a 'that's that' tone of voice. As if there was nothing more simple and obvious. Blake looked at his honest smile and fully relaxed herself. Regardless of her lack of trust she knew that there was no one who could smile this genuinely and be lying. Thinking she may have met the nicest human she knew, a thought clicked in her head when she saw the whisker marks on his face and the fox in his bedroll.

"Are you a fox faunus?" She whispered to him as quietly as possible. He looked confused for a moment but then waved off her question like it was laughable.

"Nope, just a normal human. The furball and I go way back though so any fox like attributes of mine are probably just his bad influence." The fox in question popped one eye open and appeared to glare at Naruto before closing it once again. Something about the action struck Blake as bizarre. She pondered over it for a moment until a light bulb went off in her head.

"Is your fox sentient?" she inquired quietly, not wanting anyone to hear her make the suggestion in case it was true. Naruto winced as if she had poked a wound of his. He glanced to the fox who opened his eyes to look back. The fox rolled his eyes once and then closed them again.

"Well, I unwittingly stole your secret, guess it is only fair you get one of mine," The blonde rationalized jokingly. "Yeah, Kurama is as smart as you or I. I promise you if there weren't all these people around he'd tell you himself he was smarter." Naruto laughed as Kurama gave a slight nod of his head indicating that was indeed the case. Blake couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Of course Naruto wouldn't think of her as anything but a person. His partner was a literal fox and he seemed to treat him as an equal.

"Whiskers! I leave you alone for two minutes and you're already flirting with another girl. How could you take my innocence and then leave me like this!" Yang cried out from faux abandonment. Nothing else she had done had really gotten to Naruto but saying loudly in a room full of people that he had 'taken her innocence' seemed to do the trick. Naruto frantically waved his hands around and turned a bright red. Finally getting the reaction she had been looking for the entire day, Yang fistpumped in victory causing Naruto to scowl at her.

"What are you reading?" The black and red girl she now knew as Ruby asked. Surprised by her interest Blake reflexively answered.

"It's called A Man With Two Souls. It is about a man who has two souls trapped inside him who are vying for control of his body."

"I love books. Yang used to read one to me every night before bed. Stories of heroes and monsters. They're part of the reason I want to be a huntress," Ruby explained softly, appearing to not want Yang to overhear her.

"And why is that? Hoping that you can get a happily ever after?" Blake questioned with a small amount of derision. She had believed in a happily ever after before as well.

"Well, I hope we all will. Isn't that what being a huntress is all about? Protecting the people and helping everyone get their own happily ever after?" Ruby questioned innocently. Blake gave her a small smile that one might give a child.

"That's very ambitious of you… but unfortunately the real world doesn't always work out that way," Blake said quietly.

"Then we change the world!" a male voice declared in such a way you could almost hear the grin that he must have had when he said it. Sure enough when Blake looked up from Ruby she saw Naruto coming up with that stupid smile on his face.

"You can't just change the world Naruto. It isn't that simple," Blake said with a sad shake of her head.

"Pffft. Like that could stop me. People spend their whole lives making up reasons not to go and get something done. Well, I only need one reason to go and get things done," Naruto declared absolutely. Blake looked at him disbelievingly.

"And what's that?" She asked in a tone that was dripping with derision.

"Simple! It is right or it isn't. I protect the good people, fight the bad people, and make sure all of my precious people are kept safe. That's just the way I am." Naruto stated just as confidently as before. He was not the slightest bit put out by the way she had treated him. In his mind he was just stating a fact and that was that.

"Short, sweet and to the point. I like it Foxy!" Yang concurred loudly and thumped him on the back. The force knocked him forward slightly but didn't do anything to that bright smile of his. Blake was about to comment when a shrill voice came from behind the two blondes.

"What is going on over here!? Don't you realize some of us are trying to sleep?" The white haired Schnee complained. Naruto turned to face her and within an instant they both yelled.

"Not you again!" Weiss glared at Naruto while he looked at her with nothing but a staggering sense of exhaustion.

"What do you mean not me again? I still don't know what you called me, but when I figure it out I swear on my life that if it was an insult you are going to be-" Blake snuffed out the light and decided to go to sleep. There was no way she was going to waste time listening to that.

* * *

Naruto had roused himself from bed earlier than most everyone else. Although as a kid he had slept in almost chronically, a life on the road had long since robbed him of such luxury. Having been constantly kept busy between visiting the bijuu, keeping the peace and managing his own village at the tail end of things there was rarely much time for long periods of rest. Kurama was lightly snoring from his shoulder as he headed down to the cafeteria. After fixing himself a substantial breakfast of primarily fruits and vegetables he started to head to the locker room to find his locker. He didn't really think he'd have any use for it with his storage scrolls but Gyūki reminded him that it was important to keep up appearances.

Five minutes groping around aimlessly through the locker room was sufficient enough to annoy him. For some unbeknownst reason these lockers were not in any sort of order, pattern or sensible formation that he could discern, even with the codebreaking training he had received from Ero-Sensei. Eventually he heard a familiar, if not welcome, voice. However this time it seemed so polite he was having trouble believing it.

"Well Pyrrha, have you given any thought to whose team you would like to be on? I'm sure everyone must be eager to unite with such a strong, well known individual such as yourself." The voice of Weiss rang out and drilled into Naruto's ears. That sickly sweet pleasantness felt so disingenuous based on every interaction he had observed from her thus far.

"I honestly wasn't quite sure. I was just planning to let the chips fall where they may." The redheaded warrior spoke out. Naruto instantly recognized her as the one Gyūki had pointed out on the first day and forcibly controlled every facet of bodily reaction to avoid another teasing from Kurama should he wake up. Deciding that he was clearly in need of help he resolved to ask his fellow students for aid. He was most certainly not doing this to once again mess with Dobe.

"Hey you two, any chance you've seen locker 558? I've been hunting around in this mess of lockers for long enough to having been bested by this school's absolutely abysmal organizational skills." Naruto bowed his head in mock defeat. The red headed warrior giggled and Weiss looked positively murderous. Deciding the blonde nuisance was due for another dressing down she started in on him.

"Do you have the slightest inkling of who you are talking to?" Weiss questioned him scathingly. Naruto looked pensive for 5 seconds, his brow furrowed in concentration. Then as if the answer had struck him like lightning he perked up and started to speak.

"Of course I know who you are, Do-"

"IF YOU CALL ME DOBE ONE MORE TIME I WILL SKEWER YOU!" Weiss practically screamed at him. The prankster that still lived on in Naruto's heart wanted nothing more than for her to see just how comically poor that would go for her. Tempering his childish instinct Naruto decided that for once he would deescalate with Ice Queen.

"Sorry, but I can't say that I do know your friend Weiss. Any chance you could introduce me?" Naruto apologized genuinely. He wasn't exactly the biggest fan of the way Weiss conducted herself but rationalized that he should be the one to try to bury the hatchet given that he had 50 odd years on her. The admonishing line of questioning she took made him regret that adult decision within moments.

"Pyrrha Nikos? You don't know _the_ Pyrrha Nikos?" Weiss asked disbelievingly.

"Can't say that I do," Naruto responded honestly.

"Pyrrha graduated top of her class at Sanctum," Weiss stated

"I'm going to hazard a guess that is a school?" Naruto hesitantly offered.

"4 time winner of the Mistral regional tournament!" Weiss declared, beginning to fire herself back up again.

"Hey that's pretty cool Pyrrha. We should spar some time if you're up for it," Naruto offered.

"For the love of- she is on the front of every Marshmallow Pete's Flakes box!" Weiss could almost see the steam coming out of the head of the poor princess. Delving into his memories he remembered one time many months ago he had tried the cereal.

"Oh! I know what you're talking about. As cool as that is I have to say that cereal was way to sweet for me. Couldn't even finish a bowl let alone the box," Naruto admitted with a laugh. Pyrrha gave him a happy smile.

"That is perfectly fine. To be honest the cereal isn't very healthy for you so that is probably for the best," she admitted with a giggle of her own. Not liking the positive atmosphere between the two Weiss thrust herself in between them and stared down the shinobi.

"So after hearing all of that do you really think she is someone that you should be bothering with your locker drivel?" Weiss asked hoping to drive him into a corner. With each passing instant she spent with this dolt she was becoming more and more aware that doing so was asking the impossible.

"I'm not quite sure how all of that relates to why she would or wouldn't know where my locker is… you're gonna have to explain that to me again," Naruto said with an embarrassed laugh. Weiss resembled a volcano that had blown over with her face turning as red as a tomato. Deciding to stop things before they escalated any further Pyrrha decided to interject.

"I believe your locker is right here actually," she said, gesturing behind her and to the right. Naruto checked the paper and the locker number multiple times before falling to his knees.

"Kami, yes! My search is over!" He cheered with relief. Pyrrha once again laughed at his antics whereas Weiss was still experiencing a meltdown from the last set of perceived drivel. Having already risen from his knees Naruto went to his locked and unlocked it. Placing a few kunai in a pouch and then just tossing the pouch in the locker. "Good enough!" Naruto declared slamming the locker shut. "Well it was a pleasure meeting you Pyrrha. Best of luck out there. Seriously let me know about that spar some time. I wanna know what a champion here has to offer." Without giving it a second thought Naruto turned away and his sage cloak flourished. The black and red cloaked student walked towards the exit with his hands behind his head looking as carefree as could be.

As Pyrrha watched him walk away she was struck with a simple thought. An impulse or instinct that anyone would recognize. That simple feeling that you had encountered something that you needed to have, something that you had spent your life searching for. With that simple thought Pyrrha formed her resolve into one simple word.

 _Mine._


	6. Heavenly Attraction of a Fiery Goddess

**_Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or Naruto. One might think that was obvious, but lawyers be crazy._**

 ** _Hello again friends and compatriots. Kamorge0 here and it is time for chapter 6 of An Old Fox's New Trick_** ** _. We are already almost 30 followers strong and I've had nearly 1,000 visitors inside a singular day. Being the first time I've done this I'm grateful for all the support you have given this story so far. As long as people remain interested I have no intention of dropping the series. Thankfully for those of you that don't like AN's I didn't get a single question this time around so you get to be spared my lengthy preamble. So for the time being I just want to say thank you to all that have followed/favorited and a special thanks to tera12, catze86, Aimlessamo, Alleria, eniox27, and bayhon. Your guys feedback and reviews are what make this worth doing to me. Stay tuned at the end for a special little announcement/competition. Without any further adieu enjoy chapter 6!_**

* * *

 **Chapter 6**

 **Heavenly Attraction of the Fiery Goddess**

Pyrrha strode out to the cliffs of Beacon after it was announced the students should head there fully prepared. Her entire life she had trained as a warrior. She had trained herself into the ground day in and day out to become the best of the best. She sacrificed all of her time to become a warrior that could make her family proud. When she won her second Mistral Regional Tournament she earned the title of 'Invincible Girl'. After she had won it four consecutive times that name changed to 'The Goddess of Victory'. With each passing year more and more people approached her. Whether it was to court her friendship, court her popularity, or in some cases court her, the number of people approaching her skyrocketed over the years.

Despite that she couldn't help but feel every proposal seemed so incredibly fake. Everyone who talked to her spoke of her accomplishments in the arena. Every person wanted some favor or something from her. By simply pushing herself to be the best she had alienated herself from any meaningful relationships. She had always thought that there would be time for friendships after she accomplished her goals and that she just needed to devote herself to her training. Yet when the dust had settled and she had emerged The Goddess of Victory there were no friendships to be had.

That was the reason that despite her being Mistralian she had decided to attend Beacon Academy in Vale. Here she hoped no one would know who she was and she could finally find the friendship she so desperately craved. Yet from the ride on the airship to her meetings in the lockers, she had encountered scores of people like Weiss who had sought to 'befriend' her for either her battle prowess or fame. She was already starting to lose hope when a lovable blonde walked right up to her and asked her where his locker was.

Even after being thoroughly interrogated by Weiss it was clear Naruto had no idea who she was. Even after having her battle accomplishments thrown in his face his only reaction was to ask to face her in combat. The exhilaration of someone who wanted to compete against her was a breath of fresh air to say the least. The more she had won, the more dejected her opponents had become. By the time she had left Mistral Academy most of her matches were ending in premature forfeiture. Someone wanting to test their mettle against her as it were was a welcome change of pace.

He smiled, laughed, and joked with her like he just wanted to make friends with a stranger. That sort of relationship was exactly what Pyrrha set out from Mistral looking for and she was hellbent on making sure she managed to get Naruto as a partner. As she finally approached the cliffs were Professors Ozpin and Goodwitch waited she saw her quarry. He was sitting there in front of a launch pad petting the fox she had seen across his shoulders previously… while a strange creature not even 2 feet tall dropped sand onto the launch pad in front of him.

 _Where is it getting the sand from?_ Pyrrha wondered to herself. Watching the small brown creature waddle across the ground she saw it go to a hole it must have dug. When it touched the ground with what she presumed to be its arms the earth turned to sand. He then levitated it over to the launch pad before proceeding back to his hole to get some more.

"Shu that should be enough. You don't need to gather any more," Naruto explained. Pyrrha guessed by his tone of voice that this was by no means the first time he was explaining it as the launch pad and surrounding grass was overflowing with sand. The strange creature didn't seem to listen though as it deposited another pile of sand onto the launch pad. Naruto facepalmed and dragged his hand down his face exasperatedly. "How about you make a sand castle while we wait, Shu?" Naruto suggested.

The small creature practically bounced with glee until it gave up on waddling and quite literally rolled to the hole he had been digging at. Using whatever telekinetic powers it had over sand it quickly began to assemble an impressive structure of sand much larger than it was. Pyrrha approached Naruto at where he was sitting and decided to reintroduce herself.

"Hello again Naruto. Do you remember me from the lockers?" Pyrrha asked with a smile on her face. Naruto eyed her quizzically.

"We just met less than fifteen minutes ago. While we were introduced Weiss made sure to tell me of your heroic feats. Pretty sure I remember you." Naruto teased the spartan. Pyrrha gave an embarrassed laugh and sat down next to him.

"Sorry about that. Sometimes my exploits lead to people being a little too eager to praise me. To be honest it can get a little exhausting." She confessed to the blonde as they both watched Shu's sand castle grow to being 5 feet tall and about 7 feet wide.

"Don't sweat it Pyr, you've worked hard in your life and you got recognized by people. Can't exactly hold it against you when those same people go a little crazy over you." Naruto forgave her with a bit too much empathy to be coincidence. Pyrrha also noticed the nickname he gave her and found it only added to her mood.

"Did you ever have an experience like that?" She asked Naruto. The second the question left her mouth she already regretted saying it. The blonde's face went from his usual cheerful smile to the most disconsolate of frowns. His eyes glazed over as he appeared to be looking straight through the sandcastle into nothingness.

"I… let's just say I knew someone who tried so hard to become everything they could be and all it did was drop them into an empty existence. If you don't mind I'd rather not talk about it." Naruto grumbled lightly. Pyrrha was more than tactful enough to know she had stepped into sensitive territory. Before she could say anything more she heard a sloughing of sand as part of the sandcastle was destroyed. The strange beast that had built the sandcastle was now rampaging through it like a monster and destroying the impressive structure from the top down. He jumped turning himself into a cannonball to destroy a very intricately designed clock tower.

Naruto chuckled beside her at his companions antics. Pyrrha smiled to see his mood warm and was once again about to speak to him when Professor Goodwitch spoke spoke. "Students, please head to an available space. Anyone not in position within two minutes will be disqualified from the exam." Pyrrha grumbled something about bad timing and set herself off to the pad adjacent to Naruto's own. The small sand creature had waddled its way back to Naruto and had shrunk in size. It was now perched upon his shoulder while Naruto sat on the sand the creature had gathered with his fox in his lap. Looking more closely at the sand she now noticed it was in a solid disc shape.

After the two minutes had passed Professor Ozpin addressed the formation of students. "For years you have trained to become warriors and today your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest."

"Now, I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of teams," Professor Goodwitch added. "Well allow us to put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates… today." From her left she could hear the sound of a young girl whimpering.

"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon. So it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with who you can work well." Ozpin advised. Once again Pyrrha heard the same girl whimper to her side. "That being said the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years.

"What!?" The previously whimpering girl screamed. Even further down the line Pyrrha heard someone say "I told you!" It looked like Professor Ozpin was about to proceed when Naruto's hand shot up in the air. Professor Goodwitch regarded him coldly for a few moments. When that didn't encourage him to lower his hand she sighed.

"Yes, Mr. Uzumaki?" She prompted.

"Does that mean if we don't touch the ground we don't get a partner?" Naruto asked. Goodwitch looked at him disbelievingly whereas Ozpin seemed content to pass the buck on this one by burying his face in his cup of coffee.

"Are you implying that you can fly Mr. Uzumaki?" Professor Goodwitch asked him in such a way that it was clear that for his safety the answer better be 'no'.

"You know it!" Naruto beamed at her confidently. Goodwitch looked to Ozpin for and and found the man conveniently looking away from her while taking the longest sip of coffee she had ever seen.

"Any of you who can fly will need to touch down in the forest and proceed on foot." Goodwitch stated firmly. Naruto threw his hands up in exasperation and fell flat on his disc laying down. It was a particularly odd sight considering the entire procession of students was standing.

"After you have paired up, begin making your way to the northern end of the forest. You will encounter opposition along the way. Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path, or you will die," Ozpin finished ominously. At least Pyrrha thought it would have been ominous if Naruto hadn't made a 'pfft' noise while his fox seemed to snicker on his lap. "You will be monitored and graded for the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics. Each pair must choose one and return to the top of the cliff. We will regard that item as well as your standing, and grade you appropriately. Are there any questions?"

Naruto started to sit up and raise his hand before Ozpin instantaneously said "Good! Now take your positions." Naruto growled while his fox continued to snicker. One by one they were launched into the air until only Pyrrha and Naruto remained.

"Good luck." She warmly wished him before catapulting off, readying herself to find him when he made his descent to the forest.

* * *

"So Ozpin, I assume destroying the many cameras I'm sure you have scattered around down there would be considered a bad thing." Naruto assumed casually. His hands were still behind his head as he laid casually on his launch pad. Ozpin regarded him unflinchingly.

"I would prefer you avoid destroying or disabling them if at all possible Mr. Uzumaki." Ozpin replied crisply. Naruto gave an over dramatic sigh and responded with an affirmative grunt. Goodwitch then activated his launch pad and watched as the boy was flung into the air with his bizarre animal companions. Sure enough after the first hundred feet the boy floated completely still on his circular disc of sand. He then turned to face Ozpin, did a quick figure 8 and darted down to the forest.

"Glynda. I'm sure stating this is wholly unnecessary, but I would appreciate it if you kept a close eye on Mr. Uzumaki," Ozpin requested before taking another sip of coffee.

"I would have done so regardless of your request. I still don't know what exactly it is you see in him. He is one of the most childish students this year," Glynda bristled. She did not appreciate the careless attitude he appeared to be showing a test of such great magnitude.

"Truly? I thought he appeared mature beyond his years."

* * *

After touching down to the ground Naruto resealed Shukaku and started casually walking north with Kurama in tow. After a few minutes Naruto let out a sigh of relief. _I'm glad to see your chakra still scares off the grimm here. Ozpin seems suspicious of me as it is without me throwing around any more techniques,_ Naruto communicated mentally to Kurama.

 _The funny thing about that kid is I agree with your idea to keep your powers under wraps. I was the one who encouraged you to let that geezer see as little of what we can do as possible. So why don't you explain to your old pal why it is you were so adamant about flying via Shukaku's sand!?_ Kurama snarked at Naruto. To his credit the fox's partner only rolled his eyes.

 _I already informed him in the interview that I could channel all of your power. I figured that_ _Sabaku Fuyū (Desert Suspension) was one of the most innocent techniques I can use. Hopefully the old man just writes Shu off at that. I used the Deva Path in the incident with Ruby and Dobe, and if Oz is as shrewd as I think he is then I'm going to have to attribute that ability to you. Maybe I could convince him that you all provided me multiple powers but from what I've seen from this world this is already a pretty tough sell._ Naruto shrugged. It seemed like the best option honestly. If he held back everything Ozpin would just get more suspicious. Hopefully if he just seemed like the most powerful student in class that would write off his aura score and get the old man to leave him well enough alone.

 _Naruto-boy, be aware. Something approaches us._ Gyūki warned him. Mid warning he had already reached into his satchel to grab a kunai and throw it towards the direction he originally came from. He waited to hear the Kunai hit its mark yet even after a few seconds passed there was no sign on of the kunai hitting its mark or hitting the ground. _That's strange._ Gyūki pondered. A moment later a javelin game piercing through the air at an incredible speed surrounded by a black aura. A lifetime of living in the ninja world caused Naruto reflectively activated his Tendō.

"Shinra Tensei!" Naruto shouted with an outstretched hand. The spear instantly stopped and fell harmlessly to the ground. Collecting himself he reached out to search for his attacker. Feeling the energy of the perpetrator Naruto held out his hand towards their direction. "Banshō Ten'in" He said calmly. His jutsu immediately began acting on the perpetrator. His attacker attempted to ground themselves to resist his jutsu so he increased its power. Finally his attacker flew through the air and into his outstretched hand. Naruto was ready to catch them by the neck until a familiar mane of red hair came into his vision. Reacting quickly he opened up his arms and safely caught the flying girl as she hurdled towards him. Embracing the now recognizable spartan in an incredibly close hug he blushed slightly and scratched his head with his free hand. "Hey there partner," He said lamely.

* * *

Pyrrha had watched behind her as Naruto floated on the disc and did a figure eight, clearly goading their professors. She chuckled despite herself as she watched him speed down to the ground on his sandy perch. She took a deep breath and then prepared to land. Using Akoúo̱ to force her way through the lighter foliage she found a sturdy branch and infused her arms with aura. Grabbing onto it she swung nimbly from one branch to another until her momentum had slowed down enough that she felt comfortable rolling to the ground. She quickly stood up and changed Miló into its rifle form. After scanning the area a few times over she sheathed her shield and weapon and started to run towards where she had seen Naruto set down.

Mere minutes later she arrived upon his landing zone. The large pile of sand being a dead giveaway. Based on the way some of the sand was displaced it looked like Naruto had managed to find the correct direction and was headed towards the relics. Pyrrha took off like a bolt to find her would-be partner. She felt like she was quickly gaining ground on him until she was struck by a thought that somehow hadn't crossed her mind.

 _I'm basically hunting him. Eep! What will he say if he sees me running towards him like I was desperately tracking him down? I mean I am trying to track him down, but not desperately! I just want to find someone to be my first true friend at Beacon and he seemed like a nice bet. There is nothing weird about pursuing friendship right? I'm just a perfectly normal, ordinary girl doing ordinary things to make friends. There is nothing even remotely strange about this._ The spartan continued to try to convince herself of this as she meandered forward.

She would have continued to aimlessly move forward lost in thought if a low whistling noise didn't jolt her from her thoughts. Her training kicked in and she recognized it as an incoming projectile. Hoping some part of it was metal she reached out with her semblance and attempted to freeze the object in place. When she saw the kunai she recognized it as Naruto's and decided to have a little bit of fun. _You wanted to challenge me eventually right? Let's see how you handle this._ Changing Miló into its javelin form she tagged it with her semblance to jettison it forward at a high speed. Based on the trajectory and angle the knife flew in at she was pretty sure it would reach Naruto and pin him to the ground or a tree harmlessly through his cloak.

"Shinra Tensei!" She heard him shout. Suddenly her control of her semblance was completely overpowered and she heard Miló clatter harmlessly to the ground. She was shellshocked that his semblance was somehow more powerful than hers or could somehow negate her own. Her trained ears made out that Naruto had said something, even if she couldn't distinguish what. Immediately after she felt a powerful force pulling her entire body in his direction. She dug Akoúo̱ into the ground to anchor herself in place while she tried to figure out what was happening.

 _Is his semblance the ability to copy semblances? No, this doesn't feel like my semblance. My entire body is being pulled towards him, not just my armor. How powerful is he?!_ She grit her teeth as the force on Akoúo̱ threatened to dig it out of the ground. As her mind raced trying to find a method to victory the force exerted on her body increased substantially. Her shield dislodged itself from the ground and she went careening through the air towards the direction she knew Naruto was. As she flew completely upright down the path her eyes eventually caught Naruto's and he seemed to panic. Opening up his not outstretched arm he watched as she rapidly approached through the air. A moment later he lowered his outstretched hand as she was nearly upon him and she felt the force of his semblance leave her body. Inertia carried her the rest of the way into the blonde's powerful embrace. After using his body to brace her impact he sighed and quickly moved a hand to scratch the back of his head in embarrassment.

From the comfort of his arm she looked up to the blonde student and gave her the exact thing she wanted. "Hey there partner," he said, and she thought it was one of the coolest lines she had ever been given.

* * *

 ** _Hey guys! Thanks for making it through chapter 6 of OFNT. As mentioned previously there is just a fun little game I wanted to play with the audience to see if anyone likes our crazy Tanuki. If we can get 5 review praising Shukaku Lord of Sandcastles by the time I wake up and finish the next chapter then I'll write a fun little omake for you all about the crazy raccoon. Next chapter will once again be released in less than 24 hours. See you lot soon!_**


	7. Teach a Girl to Fish

**_Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to RWBY or Naruto. The first thing I will do when said rights are handed over to me is have Naruto unlock the Rinnegan to use the Outer Path to resurrect the Arkos ship. You have my solemn word._**

 ** _AAAAAAAAH! My author's note was like 600 words long and got deleted because my replacement computer has auto-update turned on. Onto take two I suppose._**

 ** _Hello friends and compatriots. Welcome to chapter 7 of An Old Fox's New Trick. I am delighted to have you here. First off I want to thank everyone who followed/favorited me or my work. I'm glad to have you all along and I can promise it should be a long and bumpy one. This chapter is quite a bit longer than any other because I wanted to get through the Emerald Forest Entrance Exam arc, but still had so much left in it I needed to get done. As I'm sure you noticed due to the fact we are already at 30k words and I haven't even assigned teams I am in no rush here. Moving on from there I wanted to answer some questions that had some really important answers. I had already done it (stupid computer) but I suppose I shall make a move to do it again._**

 ** _Q: Is this Pyrrha x Naruto? It sure as hell feels like it._**

 ** _A: It could be, but as of now it is not. I get how Pyrrha chasing him around can give you that idea and it is meant to. To explain this we need to look at the canon relationship between Pyrrha X Jaune. Their relationship can really be broken down into three stages of attraction. Step 1: Jaune has no idea who Pyrrha is. This sparks the idea in Pyrrha's mind that she could have a truly normal friendship that was completely uninhibited by her fame or success. This causes her to make Jaune her partner, but there is no romance at this time. Step 2: Jaune demonstrates how hard he is willing to work to overcome his weaknesses. Pyrrha sees reasonably cute boy her age demonstrating perseverance and devotion to his goals. He demonstrates an unwillingness to give up or accept himself as he is. That is a trait Pyrrha is clearly aligned with and attracted to. Step 3: Cardin defends his friends at Forever Fall and then proceeds to defend Cardin even after all he has done. This demonstrates that Jaune will put himself in harm's way to defend those precious to him as well as the fact that he believes in the good in people. In Jaune's eyes Cardin is worth saving because he could change. That aligns with Pyrrha's views as she obviously views Jaune the same way. Naruto has all three of those steps front-loaded into him at the very beginning of this story. In near any Naruto X RWBY crossover I believe that if those two are given sufficient time to interact (AKA being paired on the same team) she is basically required to fall for him. I can say that will happen, but I can not promise he will reciprocate._**

 ** _Q: Ruby x Naruto?_**

 ** _A: Ruby x Naruto is by no means out of the running, this is not a guaranteed Pyrrha x Naruto story. She is actually one of the top three presently with Pyrrha/Ruby/Blake. The only pairing I will promise not to do is Naruto x Nora. My OTP of Ren x Nora will not be defiled in my story. The views of the readers will largely determine which route I end up taking. I say this not because I'm a people pleaser but because I have already story-boarded all major pairings and how they would ultimately change the story. I even have a pairing with Cinder or Neo planned out and both change the story dramatically. TLDR flood me with feedback defending your pair. Unlike some authors who just want to write their story if there isn't a community here I'll just stop writing. Currently Pyrhha leads in no small part due to Chaotiquill._**

 ** _I'd call it a Q but it is really just complaining: Why does Naruto have the Rinnegan?! The Rinnegan is a Sharingan thing and the only known users of it are Hagoromo, Madara, ETC ETC ETC._**

 ** _Response: I hate teaching Naruto lore but I hate people thinking I don't know what I'm doing more. So Hagoromo was the original Sage of Six Paths. He had access to the Rinnegan as well as all of his sage powers such as the Truth Seeker Orbs. Hagoromo has two sons named Indra and Asura. He divided his techniques between the two of them. Indra obtained the power of the Rinnegan whereas Asura gained the powers and vitality of a Sage. Skip forward a millennia or so and we then get Nagato. Nagato has the power of the Rinnegan but has never before shown a Sharingan. Skip forward to Sasuke and the battle against Kaguya. Sasuke is the transmigrated form of Indra's chakra. Sasuke then is able to develop the Rinnegan. We now know that the Rinnegan is not a Sharingan thing, but an Indra thing. Even without all that deductive reasoning they have basically said the Sharingan is only a byproduct of an incomplete Rinnegan. So there you go! Naruto has some of Indra's chakra. Why? Read and I'll tell you eventually!_**

 ** _Jokes aside It has been a pleasure to have as many of you along for the ride as I have. I hope you all keep reading, keep enjoying and keep reviewing. Without further Adieu I present to you Chapter 7 of OFNT._**

* * *

 **Chapter 7**

 **Teach a Girl to Fish**

Pyrrha and Naruto walked side by side through the forest as Kurama sat on his usual perch. While heading towards the direction Professor Ozpin had told them they could find the relics Pyrrha was taking the chance to learn about her newly made partner. "So Naruto?" Pyrrha questioned.

"What's up Pyr?"

"Earlier when you stopped my javelin was that your semblance?" Pyrrha queried her partner. Naruto gave an internal sigh of relief; he was glad he had thought ahead with a prepared answer.

"Kind of. My semblance is more like a contractor of guardian spirits. Kurama here primarily gives me access to what my clan knew as the 'Tendō'. In this language they also referred to it as the 'Deva path' or 'God Realm'. It gives me control over polarity of any object that I wish with myself as the origin… well, kind of anyways. I can move an object up or down as long as it it is closer to me if I'm using Banshō Ten'in or further away from me if I'm using Shinra Tensei." Naruto explained as concisely as he could. Pyrrha's jaw almost dropped to the forest floor.

"You control polarity?"

"You got it."

"And just for to make sure I wasn't imagining it you said that you could use this Tendō on anything?"

"Absolutely anything."

"... that was supposed to be my thing." Pyrrha complained quietly and kicked some dirt in frustration. When she came to Beacon Academy she had always hoped to find someone strong enough to challenge her. That didn't change the fact that seeing someone have a semblance that was so similar and yet more universal than her own miffed her competitive spirit. A thought crossed her mind and she decided it couldn't hurt knowing more about her mysterious partner. "It seemed like when you deflected Miló you were the epicenter of your semblance. Is that the restriction for its power?" She asked trying to find some way in which her own was superior.

"Normally yeah." Pyrrha's face brightened. She could freely control metal, suspending it in air or causing it to change directions. Naruto's technique seemed restricted to his person. _Ha! I win!_ She thought to herself. "I do have one technique with Tendō that pulls it everything towards a little ball I create… but I never use that one." Naruto admitted timidly. Pyrrha eyed him inquisitively.

"Is it too weak to use in combat?" She inquired. Naruto grimaced for a moment before giving his reply.

"It is definitely not something I'd have any use for here," he non-answered. Pyrrha decided she would let it go as he clearly didn't want to talk about it.

 _He is probably just embarrassed that his external technique is weaker. With how powerful his semblance seems to be he probably just doesn't have control the more refined aspect of it._ She rationalized to herself.

"What about you Pyrrha? What does your semblance do?" Naruto asked cheerily, bringing Pyrrha back to the conversation.

"I also control polarity, but my semblance only has domain over metal. Most everyone fights with metal of some sort though, so I have learned to use it in great effect in combat!" Pyrrha preened to herself. She internally remarked that it was funny how at odds with herself she was. She had come to Beacon with the intent of finding a normal friendship, but now that she had the chance at one she couldn't quell her competitive instincts.

Naruto raised one hand to his mouth and let out a gasp. "Only metal? Don't worry Pyr I'm sure if you eat your Marshmallow Pete's Flakes you'll grow up big and strong like me." Naruto teased the redheaded girl. She giggled and punched him in the shoulder.

"Jerk!" She teased back. Strangely enough afterwards she saw his face change from a playful grin to abject horror. Before she could get worried it changed back to his normal grinning face.

 _Don't tell me I'm the teme of this world!_ Naruto thought to himself utterly terrified of the implications. He spent the rest of the walk towards the clearing engaging Pyrrha in idle conversation while attempting to convince himself that he was not even the slightest bit like Sasuke as a teenager. Eventually they made their way to a clearing. They were greeted by the sight of an old ruin and two familiar faces.

"Foxy! I see you've found your partner already." A familiar blonde voice boomed at him. Surely enough Yang stood next to Blake with her hands behind her head and chest thrust forward. "I beat you here of course. Don't tell me you're a slow starter Whiskers." She teased Naruto who only deemed to respond with a roll of his eyes, choosing to grasp onto the first statement as a point of conversation.

"Don't know how much I "found" my partner. She kind of snuck up on me and tried to impale me with her spear." Seeing Yang's playfully waggling eyebrows Naruto instantly smacked himself. "No Yang, not like that. Kami... I know a few people you'd get along with just fine," Naruto grumbled to himself. Pyrrha was about to defend herself saying that Naruto attacked her first but she was confused what Naruto meant by 'not like that' and why Yang seemed to find it worth teasing him for. "Cool to see you again Blake!" Naruto interrupted Pyrrha's thoughts and beamed at the black haired girl.

"I'm just happy we made it through without incident. Besides fighting a few beowolves and ursa the walk here was relatively tame." She confessed honestly. Pyrrha remarked to herself how odd it was that they didn't encounter a single grim on their entire trek through the forest.

"I didn't even break a sweat." Yang bragged stretching her arms out. Naruto chuckled at Yang's bravado. He tensed up as he saw Kurama's ears flick from his perch.

"Something is coming." Naruto said ominously as he drew a kunai from his satchel, Pyrrha unsheathed Miló and readied Akoúo̱, Yang punched her right hand into her left palm and Blake readied her katana. The three of them then followed Naruto's gaze to the sky and saw a giant nevermore flying over them. Pyrrha squinted closely and saw what looked like a white figure along with a similarly sized black/red one grabbing onto the nevermore. Suddenly the black and red figure fell from the bird straight towards them.

"Heads uuuuuuuup!" The mass of color cried out. As it fell closer and closer to the ground Pyrrha was able to discern a person's form. She then saw Naruto casually walk a few feet forward and then stood in place with his arms outstretched. A few seconds later the person plopped straight into his arms in a bridal carry as he bent his knees to reduce the impact.

"I can already tell that you are going to be a trouble magnet Short Stack." Naruto sighed as he set the now identifiable girl down. After a brief moment of getting over the shock she positively glowered at him.

"I am not short!" She cried at him. "I am still growing! I drink milk! I'll show you!" She continued to splutter angry, fragmented sentences at him concerning her height.

"Did your sister just fall from the sky?" Blake asked Yang in confusion.

"I-" Yang started before the sound of a roaring beast brought all their eyes back to the nearby forest. A giant ursa appeared and started knocking down tree after tree. As soon as it completely cleared the treeline it started flailing about.

"YEEHAW!" A feminine voice whooped as a large blast of sparks appeared from behind the ursa. She then cartwheeled over the ursa's back as it fell to the ground and landed to look at the deceased creature. Her pink skirt and orange hair made the situation all the more comical. "Awww… it's broken." She whined.

"Nora… Please… Don't ever do that again." A black haired boy with a pink highlight demanded exhaustedly next to her. The girl then sprinted over to where the relics were placed on their pedestals and grabbed a golden rook without hesitation. Singing a song about being 'Queen of the Castle' she basically skipped back to the boy she had entered with.

"Did that girl just ride in on an ursa?" Blake once again asked Yang.

"I-" And for the second time Yang was interrupted by some loud noise that sounded like a growl crossed with a shriek. Another grimm came barreling through the forest knocking down trees as it went. What appeared was a giant deathstalker. The large scorpion claws flexed as its jaw chittered while the golden stinger attached to its tail loomed menacingly.

"Did a deathstalker really just manage to find us in the middle of the forest?" Blake asked Yang for the third time. Yang began to growl furiously as her eyes turned red.

"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! COULD EVERYONE JUST CHILL OUT FOR TWO SECONDS BEFORE SOMETHING CRAZY HAPPENS AGAIN!?" Yang's bright red eyes only accentuated her palpable anger. The universe gave her a comedic three seconds of peace before the nevermore dropped Weiss out of the sky.

* * *

 _Her power is tied to rage. I knew there was a reason I like her._ Kurama mused to himself. Naruto sighed as he felt the nevermore circle back around on their group.

 _On a serious note where did this deathstalker come from furball? I could swear they are one of the more powerful grimm. Why didn't your chakra scare it off like the others?_ Naruto asked his fox companion. Kurama contemplated for a moment before he brought his paw to hit his face in frustration.

 _Gaki, you're an idiot. The little bit of chakra I was letting off to scare the grimm might have worked on the weaklings, but it is essentially an intense miasma of hate and negativity. Now what did we learn grimm were attracted to?_ Now it was Naruto's turn to hit himself in the face.

 _Right… attracted to negativity. Concentrated hate definitely qualifies as negativity. So the lesser grimm were scared of it but the greater grimm are looking at your chakra as a tasty meal._ Naruto sighed. He had spent the better part of a year gathering information about this place and as he watched Weiss get dangerously close to hitting the grassy plane they were on he berated himself for his carelessness.

He lazily held out his arm and Weiss went from a dead fall to shooting at him like a rocket. Similar to how he did with Pyrrha he stopped his Tendō right as she reached him. He cushioned her crash with his body, leaning back and using his chakra to cement his feet to the ground as he attempted to soften the impact as much as possible. After that was finished he set her down and grinned at her.

" _Weiss_ of you to drop by," He teased. There were a few seconds of silence before the collective party groaned save Yang. She looked at him with the shock someone might look at a great tragedy. It looked like her life was passing before her eyes. Breaking herself from the hell that was her mind she absolutely bellowed at Naruto.

"THERE IS NO WAY YOU MADE THE FIRST PUN!" Yang was absolutely furious. There was no justice in a world where she did not get to make the first pun it seemed. Blake rolled her eyes at her partner's attitude.

"Well now that we've gathered everyone here I suppose it is time to die together?" Blake joked sardonically. Yang's eyebrow twitched as it looked like she was about to erupt. That was the joke she was going to make!

"Oi you lot, get it together!" Naruto shouted to all of them. Gone was the face of the cheerful goof most all of them had known. Taking its place was a commander ready to lead his troops. "Pyrha, Castle Queen, Broody Boy you're with me." He commanded the group. The orange haired girl stood ramrod straight and saluted. She then marched behind Naruto waiting for him to lead. The 'broody boy' regarded him with an arched eyebrow but fell in line as well.

"Ruby, Yang, Blake, and Dobe I want you to take care of the giant scorpion. Follow whatever chain of command you feel fits best, but be safe and work together. Dobe, I can already tell you have issues with following people's orders but you need to swallow your pride and do your damn job." Whereas one might expect Weiss to look at him with her all-to-familiar anger at that moment she merely looked cowed. "Once we finish the nevermore we'll help you with the deathstalker if you can't handle it." Naruto brusquely turned after saying everything he needed to and started jogging away from the deathstalker to give the other team space. Remembering something he looked to the fox on his shoulder. It appeared to grumble and then nodded as it jumped off its perch made its way over to the group of girls.

"Are you sending Kurama with us? Can you do that?" Blake asked Naruto curiously as the fox continued to slowly plod its way over to them.

"You know it! As long as Kurama is out and about he can share his power with me over a pretty long distance." Naruto spied her expression and immediately started downplaying. "I mean it has its limits of course! It should be fine here though."

"Hey Foxy!" Yang interrupted closing the discussion,"Don't you worry about that big bird. When we finish first we'll make sure to bail you out." Yang challenged him. Naruto laughed at the known impossibility of that statement.

"You beat that oversized scorpion first and I'll make you dinner some time Yang." Naruto laughed out again. Yang's eyes widened and then narrowed in glee.

"You're on!" She exclaimed, punching her fist into her palm.

* * *

"Broody Boy, take this." Naruto reached into his satchel and pulled out a spool of ninja wire. The boy eyed it with clear recognition and deposited it in his jacket pocket.

"Ren. And you?" He corrected and then asked. Clearly he was not one to waste time on unnecessary words.

"Naruto. Pyrrha, you're with Ren. I'm going to drag that thing down to that arch over there," Naruto gestured to a decrepit stone arch that looked like it had seen better days. Ren arched his eyebrow at Naruto. Understanding the implied question Naruto responded. "Don't worry about how I'm going to get it down, I won't have a problem. The problem I do have is that I can't keep it stuck down here forever." Naruto lied. In reality he thought flexing this much power would be enough to satisfy Ozpin's curiosity. A student who could pull a nevermore out of flight for even mere moments would be a powerful. On the other hand a student who could permanently ground a nevermore with such little effort that he could simultaneously play a game of shōgi would probably get him locked in a testing facility- or at least, they would futilely attempt to put him there.

"Got it," Ren responded briefly. Naruto then turned to face the orange haired girl. She stood perfectly at the ready; regarding him as if he was her commander.

"Once those two have it secured they won't be able to do much else other than keep it there. I'm going to need you to finish it off. Can you handle that Castle Queen?" Naruto asked her. The girl let her lips curl into a bestial grin and pulled out some sort of very large gun from her back. She then proceeded to press a button that turned it into a giant metal hammer. Naruto shot her a grin.

"Her name is Nor-" Ren tried to inform their apparent leader before a pink gloved hand shot out to cover his mouth. Naruto eyed them in confusion but eventually spun to face their flying foe.

"All right Team Nevermore! Let's give em hell!"

"HOOO-AHH!" Castle Queen shouted. She felt imbued with energy from their commander's battle speech. Naruto then held out his right hand towards the nevermore. Ren's acute sense of aura made him gasp as he saw the intense amount of energy that began to surface through Naruto's body.

"Banshō Ten'in." Naruto intoned loudly. Recognizing the language that he spoke as he got into position Ren couldn't help but scoff slightly. _Heavenly Attraction of All Creation? What a pretentious name._ He thought to himself. Yet despite his contempt he was amazed at the apparent power of the technique when the nevermore dropped from the sky like a stone. A second of plummeting later its head smashed through the stone arch Naruto had positioned them at. Bricks and dust exploded down as Ren shielded his eyes. "Any time now guys! Can't do this forever!" Naruto panted loudly a fair distance away from him. Ren nodded to Pyrrha, and she grabbed the spool while Ren wrapped the wire around his hand a few times to secure a grip.

The spartan leapt onto the back of the nevermore and ran across its midsection. She nimbly jumped to the other side of the nevermore and pulled the wire as hard as she could. The nevermore let out a screech as the ninja wire dug into its flesh. A moment later Ren could tell Naruto had released his semblance as the nevermore bucked backwards almost yanking him off the ground. "Nora, now!" Ren yelled as the ninja wire dug into his own hand.

"Nevermore pancake coming up!" Nora yelled as she jumped high into the air. With a devilish grin she then started to fall. Upon reaching the nevermore in a blur of pink and orange she slammed her hammer into its head trapped in between the two stone pillars that remained of the arch that once was. With such destructive force applied to it, and such little the nevermore could do about it, its head was flattened completely. It twitched violently once and then its entire body went slack as it started to fade away.

"Way to take it to 'em Team Nevermore!" Naruto praised the group with a grin. He was still breathing heavily but it looked like he must have recovered from using his semblance. Nora changed her hammer back into its gun form and then rushed over to Naruto positively glowing.

"Oh my gosh that was so much fun! That plan was amazing Commander!" Nora praised what in her mind was now her fearless leader. "Your semblance was soooo cool! You just held your hand out and shouted some gibberish and then the nevermore just vrooooooooooom SPLAT onto the ground!" Naruto balked at the girl's energy level, as she visibly vibrated in front of him.

"He said Banshō Ten'in. It means Heavenly Attraction of All Creation." Ren politely informed his friend while putting a hand on her shoulder to stifle her vibrations. Nora's excitement could not be contained as she merely caused the offending limb to vibrate along with her. Pyrrha looked surprised at the rather grandiose name of the skill. She had figured Naruto wasn't exactly one for such things.

"What does the name of the other technique you used earlier in the forest mean?" Pyrrha asked Naruto. Naruto bashfully looked away seeming embarrassed.

"What did he say?" Ren asked Pyrrha curiously.

"I think he said something like 'Shina Tenseh'," Pyrrha supplied with an unsure tone. Ren snickered once which caused Naruto to glower at him.

"I'm guessing he probably said 'Shinra Tensei'. I'm guessing that was a some kind of repulsion ability?" Ren ventured. Pyrrha nodded her head excitedly.

"How did you know?" She asked. Naruto groaned in embarrassment behind her.

"It's in the name." Ren admitted. "It means Heavenly Subjugation of the Omnipotent God." Pyrrha giggled and looked to a Naruto who clearly would rather have been anywhere else at this moment.

"Look, I didn't name it okay!" Naruto complained as his face fell into a childish pout. The remaining three all laughed at him. Ren gave a short three syllable chuckle, Pyrrha continued to giggle, and Nora let out an earthshaking belly laugh. Naruto grumbled something about 'kids these days' and then closed his eyes. A few seconds later he addressed the three of them. "Looks like the others are having a little bit a problem with the deathstalker. Kurama says they definitely have enough power to take it down but aren't cooperating at all." Seeing the expression Ren once again regarded him with Naruto proceeded to explain. "Kurama is the fox, his aura is connected to mine. That is what allows me to communicate with him and share his power despite the distance." Naruto explained. Ren gave a singular nod accepting the explanation.

"Well let's get a move on! We gotta go help them out!" Norah declared as she started wandering in the direction they had originally come from. Naruto put a firm hand on her shoulder stopping her from moving any further forwards.

"First off, they dragged the deathstalker over there." He pointed about 30 degrees to the right of where Norah was headed. "Secondly we're not going to interfere. This is their test to overcome. If we take this challenge from them they'll be nothing but worse off for it," Naruto declared stonily. Ren eyed him with a frown.

"Are you suggesting we just leave them to their fate?" He asked pointedly. Naruto shook his head in response.

"We're going to go there to assist if necessary, but unless it becomes life or death we're leaving this to them. Fighting their battles for them won't make them any stronger." Ren's expression softened and he nodded his head in understanding. Naruto wasn't being cruel; he just knew the dangers they would face and understood each and every one of them had to get stronger.

"Lead on fearless leader!" Norah shouted. Naruto gave them all a once over with his eyes to make sure everyone was in agreement. Once he saw the affirmation in everyone's eyes he started running towards the next fight.

"Try to keep up!" He jeered over his shoulder as his foot hit the ground and he basically leapt across the earth. Pyrrha, Ren and Nora were all competitive enough that the taunt worked and started sprinting after him.

* * *

As Naruto led his temporary team away towards the nevermore Ruby turned to face the deathstalker that was almost upon them. "I got this!" She declared and charged the deathstalker head on. Using her semblance she sped towards it faster than the eye could see, leaving a trail of rose petals in her wake. Using her momentum she swung her scythe overhead straight into the carapace of the deathstalker. Her weapon penetrated less than half an inch into the carapace before the deathstalker used its claw to bash Ruby off of it.

"Ruby!" Yang yelled. Her semblance flared with rage as she rushed in to protect her sister. Firing shot after shot from her gauntlet as she attempted to distract the scorpion from her downed sister, the deathstalker identified her as the threat and started to engage the blonde brawler. Yang was powerful, and was able to go blow for blow with the beast as she bashed aside its mighty pincers with the force of her punches. Sisterly instincts overpowering her she looked towards Ruby as she punched the deathstalker's claw away. Ruby appeared to be getting up which caused Yang no end of relief. Her momentary distraction cost her as the scorpion's tail bashed her into her sister.

"Why you immature child!" Weiss criticized Ruby as she caught up. "What did you expect to be able to do by yourself? You can't just fly off the handle like that!"

"Hey, stop talking to Ruby like that!" Yang defended her sister as her overprotectiveness peaked.

"We don't have time for this!" Blake hissed as she too arrived at where the group was, only to have to jump out of the way as the deathstalker attacked them. Yang instinctively grabbed Ruby in her arms as she jumped away.

"I'm okay Yang. It just got me by surprise." Ruby said pulling out of her sister's arms and steadying herself. Yang reluctantly let her go and would have given her a dressing down if she hadn't criticized Weiss for doing much the same.

"We need a plan to try and take this brute down!" Weiss shouted as she repeatedly backstepped each blow of the beast as it had fully focused its attention on her.

"Let's just all attack it at once!" Yang yelled as she jumped in there. Ruby followed her hot on her heels and Blake reluctantly joined. Off to the side perched in a tree Kurama sighed.

 _This is pathetic. This creature is so weak that any two of them could beat it with the slightest bit of effort. The least these weaklings could do is band together to be something less pathetic._ Kurama grumbled. These kids were supposed to be at least seventeen! He had guessed the Ruby girl was younger than that. That notwithstanding the Gaki had fought and defeated Kaguya by the time he was 17! Seeing such pathetic humans made him physically ill.

A minute or so passed in such a fashion before he heard Naruto's thoughts wash into his head. _How is it going Kurama?_ Naruto asked through his mind.

 _Gaki, I may have to stop calling you kid. After watching a fight this pathetic I'm beginning to remember how grateful I am I'm not going to need another jinchūriki._ Kurama complained caustically.

 _Ouch._ Naruto winced. _If they are bad enough that you are complimenting me it must be bad. We'll bring our team over immediately to see what's going on._ Kurama grunted as Naruto retreated to his own mind. When they were closer to each other it was basically impossible not to hear the other's thoughts. This distance however granted them some modicum of privacy. It had been some time since Kurama had ventured far enough away from Naruto to be inside his own head alone.

He continued to watch the girls fight with all the grace and coordination of a drunken toad. As utterly bored as he was with the fight he became alert when the white girl tripped over a mound of dirt that had been created in their scuffle. The deathstalker's tail shot forward at the speed of lightning and Kurama knew the kid wouldn't be able to dodge. _Bah!_ He mentally exclaimed. The creature was too close to striking her for him to defend her unsuspiciously so he used the only tool he hoped that stupid old man wouldn't see.

Kurama's pure malefic chakra hit the deathstalker and caused it to freeze just long enough for the white girl to regain her bearings and roll out of the way. The cat girl turned to where Kurama was facing with a primal fear in her eyes. _That one is part animal. She instinctively fears me as the apex predator when I let my fangs out. I'll have to prepare an excuse for Gaki to use if she confronts him._

Shortly after that Naruto showed up looking as fresh as he had started the day. Behind him his team was a heaving mess of sharp breaths and gasps. Kurama chuckled at the thoughts of a normal human trying to keep up with a shinobi. He was surprised to see the Gaki use Banshō Ten'in to grab the small girl and pull her towards him. The rest of the group looked to see Ruby held firmly in Naruto's grip. "Team Nevermore." Naruto's voice commanded his group. "Distract the grimm while I talk with Team Deathstalker. Engage it but use only delaying tactics. I don't want you or it hurt." The three nodded in understanding and set out to engage the scorpion. "You three, over here." Naruto commanded to the remaining three girls.

"I'm not letting them fight on their own Whiskers!" Yang snarled at Naruto as she turned to reengage the beast. Moments later she was pulled back by an incredibly powerful force as she too flew to Naruto. Once she arrived he grabbed her by the scruff of her jacket similar to Ruby. However unlike Ruby who didn't struggle in his grip; Yang fought tooth and nail to release herself. Naruto sighed and then opened his fist as she fell to her knees. Immediately she tried to get up but found an intense and persistent force trying to slam her into the ground. It took all of her strength just to kneel.

"Can you two come over here on your own?" Naruto addressed the flabbergasted Blake and Weiss. "I'm out of hands to pull people over with." As if to exemplify that point he lifted Ruby slightly off the ground. The two girls quickly came over to him.

"What are you doing!?" Weiss demanded to know of him. He was basically attacking his fellow students!

"First things first." He said and closed his hand. The pressure that had been weighing Yang down was released and she was finally able to rise to her feet. She was a bit shaky yet still managed to fix Naruto with an enraged glare.

"What the hell Naruto!" Yang exploded on him, actually using his name for once to express her seriousness. Naruto dropped Ruby as she too turned to face him.

"Honestly I'm trying to help you guys out. We're all friends here and you weren't getting anywhere with that thing," Naruto stated simply. Calling Weiss a friend was a bit of a stretch but everyone reluctantly agreed to their lack of progress on the beast. "So for now we're going to do a neat training exercise they taught me back where I came from. You-" He pointed to Ruby. "You aren't fighting that thing." To describe Ruby as crestfallen would be a vast understatement.

"We couldn't even beat it all together! How will they be able to do it without me?" Ruby complained. Part of her seemed to be upset that she wouldn't get to show her fighting prowess, but the other part was scared for the other three.

"Simple, you're going to be commanding them in battle." Naruto explained like it was the most logical thing. He then turned to face the other three. "And you three will not do so much as breathe on it unless she tells you what to do. You can do nothing but avoid it unless she explicitly tells you otherwise." Sensing an argument coming from all three of them he proceeded to threaten them. "Kami help me if you do anything but I will blast that thing into the sky and you'll lose your chance to impress anyone. All the professors will see is how you four ran around like chickens with their heads cut off and then got saved by a superior team."

The four girls stared at him with varying looks. Blake didn't seem to like being ordered around but she ultimately understood the logic of his words. Ruby seemed nervous, but that was most likely because she had no experience leading others into battle. Yang looked like she might just try to punch him in the face and be done with it there. Weiss looked at him with an expression borderlining hate for basically holding her test grade above her head. Naruto worried something might break until he heard Ruby take a deep breath and start to speak.

"We can do this guys. Naruto is right. We weren't getting anywhere because we weren't fighting like a team. One group of three is going to be way stronger than four groups of one. We can do this," Ruby reiterated firmly. The three girls looked at her and nodded their heads. Weiss then walked up face to face with Ruby and stared her down.

"You are so childish, and dimwitted, and hyperactive. Don't even get me started on your reckless fighting style." She insulted the young girl. Naruto gave her a look that told her to get on with it. He knew this was going to lead to her attempt at reconciliation. "But I know that I can be a bit… difficult. For the time being I'll follow your lead so we can beat this monster." She concluded. Ruby's face started to light up in happiness. "But only this once!" Weiss declared firmly. Naruto sighed, but supposed that would have to do.

"We got your back Ruby! You can do this!" Yang encouraged her younger sister. Naruto smiled at her and Yang gave an embarrassed one back.

"You guys have one minute to plan before I call my team off. Show me what you can do."

* * *

"Team Nevermore! Back off and leave this to the girls!" Naruto shouted over the din of fighting. They all immediately backed off and headed to where Naruto and the other four girls stood. "Alright ladies, show me your stuff!" Naruto cheered them on. Yang, Weiss and Blake all shot off like lightning. Blake going left, Weiss going right and Yang taking the deathstalker head on. Yang immediately resumed the same style of fist-meet-claw brawling that she had previously with the deathstalker. The difference this time was that Weiss and Blake both circled around the deathstalker.

Blake jumped from her position onto the deathstalker's back. The creature immediately tried to impale her with its powerful stinger but blake narrowly dodged letting it pass over her shoulder. "Weiss! Boost Glyph!" Ruby shouted. Blake jumped into the air as Weiss created a glyph that sent the black haired beauty straight into the segmented section below its stinger. Using the ribbon attached to Gambol Shroud along with the inertia from Weiss' glyph she pulled the stinger itself down to the ground.

"Freeze it!" Ruby shouted from her position next to Naruto. Weiss twisted the dust cylinder in her rapier to its ice dust chamber. Pointing it at the immobilized stinger she thoroughly froze it to anchor it to the ground. "Keep it still Yang!" Was Ruby's next command. Yang intercepted each of the incoming claws with her hands and grabbed onto them. Using all of her strength she managed to keep the deathstalker still.

"I can't do this for long!" Yang screamed with the intense exertion of her task apparent across her face.

"Elevator launch! Just like we planned it!" Ruby shouted to her teammates knowing they were in the home stretch. Weiss created a stair of glyphs for Blake to run up. After getting thirty or so feet in the air Blake jumped onto the last glyph that was directly above that had her head facing directly towards the ground. Weiss put all her strength into her semblance to thrust Blake down to the ground as fast possible. Shooting through the air like a bullet Blake readied her katana and slashed down on the deathstalker's tail cutting through it completely. "Yang back off!" Ruby commanded and Yang happily disengaged to give herself some time to catch her breath. "Weiss, Blake I need you to work together to freeze it to the ground!" Ruby gave her next order.

"I can't! I'm out of dust" Weiss yelled back as the deathstalker took a swing at her. Ruby started to panic.

"I don't know how else they can beat it. I thought she'd have enough dust for the whole plan." Ruby started to vocalize out loud. She was worried, she was scared for her friends, she wasn't sure what to do until an idea struck her. "Naruto, I'm going out there." She told him firmly. She started to prepare herself to counter any argument he had. When she looked into his eyes she saw only warmth.

"You've learned the lesson I wanted to teach you anyways. Go give em' hell Little Reaper." Naruto gave her back a light push. With all the encouragement she needed she took off after the rest of Team Deathstalker.

"Guys, I've got a plan!" Ruby said as she arrived on the scene. There was a momentary flash of confusion on their faces until they all quickly accepted the help they could get.

"Lay it on us sis," Yang said as she continued to recuperate from her intense grapple with the deathstalker as Blake and Weiss kept it busy.

"Yang, can you keep its claws out of commission and keep it still again?" Ruby asked. Yang gave an exhausted laugh.

"I can take care of one no problem, but doing both again might be a little much." Yang admitted. Ruby started trying to adapt her plan to fit the new information.

"I can take one!" Blake hollered over the sound of her katana parrying one of the deathstalker's pincers. Well, that made things easier on Ruby.

"Alright, you two keep it still. Weiss can you speed me into it?" Ruby asked. Weiss flicked her offset ponytail.

"Can I sing a crowd to a standing ovation?" She asked rhetorically. Ruby just looked at her slightly confused.

"Ummmm… welll.. Mayb-"

"Yes, yes I can!" Weiss growled. Ruby looked at her exasperatedly.

"Why didn't you just say that!?" She asked Weiss incredulously.

"Hurry it up over there!" Yang yelled as she used both her hands to hold the deathstalker in place. Blake was standing back to back with her sticking her katana in one of its joints to try and prevent as much movement as possible. Each was doing their utmost to prevent the deathstalker's mandibles from biting down on them.

"All right! Here I go!" Ruby exclaimed as she used her semblance to zip a good fifty feet away from the deathstalker. Weiss laid down a straight line of speed glyphs straight to the deathstalker itself. "AAAAAAAAHHHHH!" Ruby shouted as she used a combination of Weiss' glyphs and her semblance to rocket towards deathstalker at breakneck speeds. Right as she was upon it she jumped a small hop just barely over the deathstalker's back. Swinging her scythe in a downwards arc she did exactly what she hoped to do and bisected the beast completely.

The light in the deathstalker's eyes quickly went out as Blake and Yang finally relaxed. The grimm slowly started to fade away as they looked to each other in happy camaraderie. Weiss herself had even found a new respect for classmates. Even worse she had found a new respect for that insolent boy that helped them get here.

"Not to break up this happy moment, but did anyone other than Nora remember to pick up a relic?" Naruto asked. "Because I counted more student pairs on the launchpad than relics. It would really suck to have done all this just to fail because we didn't get one." The faces of everyone but Ren and Nora blanched. Suddenly their victory was forgotten as they all made a frantic mad dash back to the ruins.

Naruto grinned as he saw the other 7 trailing closely behind him and felt a sense of contentment. He might not belong here, but maybe if he could help out those that did it would make things worth it in the end.

* * *

"That was surprisingly mature of Mr. Uzumaki." Glynda Goodwitch said as she rewatched him forcing four other students out of combat to listen to his advice. She was honestly impressed. She was even more impressed when she saw the students fight better three strong than they had as four.

"Mr. Uzumaki was not wrong in his teaching Ms. Rose that one group of three was more powerful than four groups of one." Ozpin admitted easily. He sipped his ever-present cup of coffee. "What surprises me is that one that young knows that lesson. Especially since he has not studied under any known huntsman, he has not attended any previous combat school, and in all matters otherwise is a complete and utter enigma."

"Why did you let him into the school with such a lack of vetting? Surely you could have looked into his past more even if you believed he genuinely deserved to attend," Glynda asked scholarly. Ozpin shrugged knowingly.

"It could have been the fact that I believed him to be more than he appears. Possibly it was that I thought he could do good for the students at this school as well as the entirety of Vale." Ozpin mused as he took another sip of coffee. "Of course…" He began. "Scoring over nine thousand on the aura measurement test may have had something to do with it." He smiled as if sharing a private joke.

"That didn't happen Ozpin, that is impossible," Glynda reaffirmed exhausted. Ozpin had claimed it several times already, but the scale that took the measurement in question was burned to a melted crisp. The data that was once on it could no longer be read. Glyna was convinced Ozpin knew that and had made up this story just to annoy her.

"Regardless I must say I am rather impressed with Mr. Uzumaki. It seems like you said, he really was more than he appeared," Glynda humbly admitted her fault. Thinking that was that she looked to Ozpin looking at her. His visage when she met his eyes could have defined smug.

"Remind me Glynda; I believe I recall you saying that Mr. Uzumaki acted like a child. I also remember after you said that I disagreed with you. Even after that I also distinctly remember betting you 50 lie-" Ozpin was caught off by a riding crop smacking him in the back of the head. Glynda stormed off to fix her temper before any of the students arrived back. Ozpin chuckled to himself. He was in pain, but he was 50 lien richer.

* * *

 **Omake 1**

Nora had just grabbed her rook after riding in on the ursa. She was singing about being kind of the castle when Naruto looked down to his stomach. After a few moments of intense concentration in which Pyrrha regarded him with a quizzical look, Naruto broke out with an exasperated, "Kami, fine. Do what you want Shu." He put his right hand over his stomach and twisted. Instantly after the same small sand creature she had seen previously appeared on his right shoulder.

The sand creature then bounced down to the ground and rolled over to the pedestals with the relics. Finding the other gold rook the creature reached out his arms to grab it but was pitifully short. Suddenly dirt turned to sand and congregated around the rook. The sand slowly lowered the rook down to him and he then delightfully waddled over to where Nora stood by her pedestal.

Nora looked down at the strange sand creature who was holding out his rook pointing to the ground a little ways off. "Do you want me to follow you over there little guy?" Nora asked the small tanuki. It nodded its head as much as its tiny fat neck would allow and waddled over. At this point everyone had forgot the deathstalker and the nevermore as they watched this strange procession of events.

Once they were clear of the rest of the group the tanuki quickly grew in size until he was about as tall as Nora and put the rook on his head. He pointed to Nora's rook and then to her head with his. Taking the hint Nora followed the raccoon dog's instruction and carefully balanced the rook on her head. Then the tanuki seemed to close its eyes and concentrate. Suddenly out of nowhere Ren and Naruto were both yelling.

"Nora! Watch out!"

"Shukaku don't you fuc-" Suddenly the earth erupted into sandy dunes. A literal sea of sand had appeared where previously there was none and it started swirling like a vortex around her. The sand began to twist and turn wildly as it began to assemble itself into increasingly complex shapes and forms. Suddenly something came up from the ground forcing Nora to fall backwards as her knees buckled. Instead of falling to her knees she found herself seated against a large throne.

For another 30 seconds the sand continued to form into something until the sandy storm that had obfuscated Nora's view abated. When she looked around she was in an opulent throne room. She looked around and saw what looked like chiseled pillars of sand erecting a mighty ceiling with murals of epic castles made entirely out of more sand. She looked to her feet to find that the creature had somehow managed to make what appeared to be a long rug of sand leading to the feet of their two thrones. She looked at the tanuki and saw that he wore a detailed crown of sand with a familiar rook placed ornamentally on top. She proceeded to feel the top of her own head and realized a similar crown was upon her head.

She looked to see everyone standing at the entrance to the throne room with varying looks of disbelief. The exception being Naruto who looked like he wanted to throw himself off of the nearest bridge.

"I AM SHUKAKU!" The Tanuki declared in a shrill sonorous voice. "BRING OFFERINGS OF BLOOD TO THE LORD OF SANDCASTLES!"

"And bring me offerings of pancakes and syrup!" Nora commanded with glee. "For I'm Queen of the Castle!"

* * *

"Well." Ozpin said dryly, "It appears our estimation that the creature could do more than make discs of sand was indeed correct." He took a sip of coffee. For some reason he couldn't quite explain he felt like he needed something a bit stronger.


	8. Update on Story Direction

**_Hey guys. I hope you just finished enjoying chapter 7 of OFNT. This is going to be a quick AN to address two main things that I have made a mistake on. I stayed up until about 7:00 AM to finish the story and my tired brain wasn't firing on all cylinders._**

 ** _1) Nagato got Madara's eyes, Sharingan is an Indra thing, and Rinnegan is a combination of Indra and Asura (AKA Hagomoro) chakra. Won't be a problem writing that into the story, and I haven't really said anything in the story that conflicts with that yet. However, my previous author's note was incorrect. Let us all mock my stupid tired brain for calling out people for not knowing Naruto lore and then proceeding to butcher Naruto lore._**

 ** _2) I wanted to address the concern of how young this old protagonist can feel. TBH I see this criticism as valid. When I story-boarded this I intended him to still act childish from time to time with the Bijuu and their interactions. I intended to do that because old though he may be he is very much a kid to them. Ever since we've gotten into Beacon there has been much less internal dialogue from Naruto and the bijuu's thought process as I've focused more on the perspective of how other characters were perceiving things. So for now I wanted to thank those who informed me Naruto was acting a little too young. I read through the story again and found that I agree with the perspective and will be doing more to carve out an older form for him. However, Naruto will still not be the old man you might think he should be. The two main reasons are going to be that if he acts too old he is going to draw suspicion to himself. I'm going to make more effort to draw attention to that thought process of his on occasion, but it will always be a persistent fear. The second is based on Freud's theory of psychological regression. If you remember back to the first chapter when Naruto first talked to Sasuke I mentioned that he hadn't talked for weeks. Other than mental conversations with Kurama or visiting bijuu he really hasn't had much interaction with people over his many years. Traveling from place to place and not really having a home for a large portion of his life. The psychological regression I will be referring to is the condition in which our ego doesn't receive proper societal stimulus through conversation. The consequence of that is not only can the mind sometimes fail to progress but it can in fact regress. If you teach someone a language to think in and then lock them in a cave for fifty years they will not come out of it a wizened hermit. TLDR I'm going to make him act older more frequently, but he's still not going to be a grandpa._**

 ** _For any of you who saw the update and thought I made a new chapter... HA! I'm going to slow down the release speed slightly from now on. Should still be around every day to every other day for the immediate time being, but I'm not going to post anymore before my lovely Beta Alleria has a chance to pound all my mistakes out of existence. I want to make sure this is more than me just vomiting ideas onto a page and posting as quickly as I've done a once over. Nothing ruins my immersion in other stories like typos or grammatical errors... Well the author misquoting lore within the AN probably would send me on a frenzy too. Regardless expect the next chapter of OFNT sometime on 5/11. See you all then!_**


	9. To Trust is to Risk

_**Greetings and salutations friends and compatriots. Welcome to Chapter 8 of OFNT. Since my ANs have been a little bit long recently I'm going to try and keep this one brief and to the point. First off a special thanks to Chaotiquill, KilluaGodspeed, and CrimsonAngel13 for your comprehensive reviews and/or shipping suggestions. It really makes my life a lot easier to bounce ships pros and cons off the wall with my readers to help me come to a decision.**_

 _ **Secondly I wanted to say that I would appreciate appraisals on this chapter in particular either from reviews or PMs. This chapter marks a return to form for me. It had been seven years since I had wrote a fictional word before I started this story three days ago. I originally think I paced the tempo too fast thinking that people wouldn't be interested in a 25k word backstory on how badly Naruto got screwed in the Elemental Nations. I was honestly afraid if I did that I may get complaints on how it wasn't even a crossover XD However in this chapter I have returned to a more natural writing style. Some of you may like it and some of you may not, but it is going to be much more in depth and character focused. This is almost a 10k word chapter and it will cover no more than 11 minutes of the RWBY show.**_

 _ **That being said this AN is already too long. Killua wanted more information on how Naruto got exiled… I don't got that but I got the next best thing. With that said I thank you for accompanying me on this journey and welcome you once more to Chapter 8 of**_ _ **An Old Fox's New Trick**_ _._

* * *

 **Chapter 8**

 **To Trust is to Risk**

Naruto stood in the same auditorium where he had previously listened to Ozpin give his initiation speech. Once again it seemed that he would have to languish through another official proceeding. Back in the Elemental Nations Naruto had been through endless ceremonies, speeches, events, soirées, banquets, and other gatherings of all shapes and sizes. That had happened in the latter part of his life when the Kages of old began to transition out and the new generation began to filter in.

Each of the new Kage all took their respective shots at trying to win him over. He figured this was largely due to the watering down of the Kages' power. With the exception of Konohagakure all villages now had an elected council required to pass any change in policy. He remembered an awful affair in which the Kazekage had actually invited him to her office with the pretense that she wanted to meet with both he and Gaara to talk about a potential overhaul of the Sand's shinobi school system. Eager to breathe any spark of life into the dying system that had defined his generation Naruto had agreed wholeheartedly. A date and time was set and at the appointed junction Naruto made his way to the Kazekage's office. He was surprised to see that Gaara had not yet arrived, but chose to sit down across from the Kazekage when she had invited him in.

Things started normally enough. She probed him for ideas about how to inspire new children to want to join the academy. That led into a conversation about how to simultaneously make parents feel safe enough to allow their children to attend, but introduce a level of danger that could help the students learn how to handle such situations if they ever arose. Naruto had genuinely enjoyed the conversation even if he felt a bit overwhelmed. It had been the first time he spoke aloud in nearly two months as he had previously been on an investigative assignment deep in mist territory. Information gathering had been done primarily by clones as he had learned over the years it was much more efficient than griping about himself.

Then she had invited him to look over her shoulder at a proposal one of her staff had drafted on an intense regimen of training exercises. He had asked why she didn't just hand the document to him and her defense was that she was reading it for the first time as well. Seeing nothing amiss Naruto stood up and moved around and behind her desk to stand at her side. Reading through the first page of the bound proposal he found the preamble to be a bit lacking. It tried to address the problem with the decreased combat efficacy of shinobi by a sort of hand to hand boot camp. He wouldn't have been bothered if this was a plan for academy students, but it was proposed as a measure for the Sand's genin. Naruto frowned slightly and the Kazekage noticed.

She asked if there was something wrong with the proposal. He described to her that in his time he had taken on a wanted rogue ninja and murderer by the time he was twelve. Responding quickly to her incredulous look he had then explained he didn't want the students to go through anything quite so drastic, but mission experience was a large portion of what propelled his generations to the heights it did. The Kazekage then nodded and marked a notation on the first page of the proposal. Naruto remembered the bright smile he had worn at the time. This was one of the only times in his life he thought he was changing the world for the better with his ideas. The Kazekage asked him if he was done with the first page and then allowed him to turn it to read the next pages.

They read the next two pages in much the same fashion. Both provided the other their insight and their collaboration resulted in more scribbled notes on the margins. When Naruto finished the second page and saw her looking up at him he understood the implied question and nodded. He reached down to turn the page and his hand bumped into her own. He blushed slightly which caused the Kazekage to give him a simpering laugh. With the page turned they started to review the next part of the proposal.

Now Naruto was in his late fifties at this point and was thoroughly able to handle any number of high risk and high stress situations. That didn't change the fact that his work kept him from experiencing very much human contact at all, let alone female contact. Naruto had yet to even lay with a woman. He could still imagine the face Ero-Sensei would make if he was alive to see and know that. The initial shocked mortification would probably have led to relentless teasing and the inevitable dragging of them both to the nearest brothel.

As Naruto and the Kazekage continued to work the 'accidental' touches became more frequent. Eventually she suggested he pull up a chair next to her. He initially declined but she continued to pester him. She claimed that it would besmirch her reputation to force the Hero of the People to stand throughout their entire meeting. He eventually relented and pulled up a chair as requested. They both then set off on their work once more in earnest. Naruto was privately relieved the physical contact had stopped. It wasn't something he was used to or particularly welcomed. He remembered ruefully how he had berated himself for acting so childishly about some accidental physical contact. He had fought and bled more times than he could count, his nervousness in this situation was ridiculous in comparison to the ease in which he handled battle.

Not five minutes after they had started their work again the Kazekage had leaned her body against his, nothing so obvious as to expose her intent, but enough that Naruto could feel the warmth of her shoulder against his arm. He had resolved to not be a child and thus sought out to ignore her warmth against his body as best he could. Time continued to pass as they read and edited the proposal. Just as they came closer and closer to finishing the proposal did her body come closer and closer to his. Their contact went from being just her shoulder to part of her arm, then proceeded to her hand resting on the middle of his thigh. Naruto grew increasingly nervous at what was the largest amount of physical intimacy he had experienced in his memory.

By the time they had completely finished the proposal her head was leaning against his arm such that if he looked at her then red hair would nearly tickle his nose. Her hand had moved from resting on the middle of his thigh to his inner thigh as well as being slightly higher up. Distracted momentarily by a sheer lack of any idea of what to do in this situation a thought struck him. He asked her where Gaara was, stating that it was not like him to be late. The Kazekage simply stated that he must have forgotten.

She looked up into his eyes and her hand resting on the inside of his thigh began to stroke his leg. Her hand reached higher and higher up his leg until she practically purred a question asking him if he would want to accompany her to her personal study for a drink, to celebrate their collaboration of course. Inexperienced though he was Naruto was not completely dense. When he looked into her emerald green eyes he felt he could see the very essence of her soul. What stared back at him was not a blushing maiden wooing a man, but a cunning vixen planning her ideal plutocracy. In that moment Naruto knew he was nothing but the most impressive tool that this seductress wanted to add to her belt.

In that moment Naruto felt betrayed, he felt misled, but the worst part of all was that he worried all of this work he had put in was nothing more than a farce. He feared that she had acted as a soothsayer, preying on what he hoped most to hear, only to snap her trap when he was foolish enough to extend his hand. Naruto had quickly stood up to dislodge her intrepid hand from reaching its final destination. He excused himself saying that he had a prior commitment and made haste to exit the office. He honestly thought that would be the end of it, convinced that she had no intention of actually doing anything with the work he had put forth.

He was thus incredibly surprised when three weeks later he was invited to a banquet to celebrate the passing of a proposal that was the union of the collaborative minds of the Kazekage and Hero of the People. Palpable relief had washed over Naruto at the time like a cleansing rainfall. All of the betrayal, doubt, and frustration he had felt was wiped clean as he saw the Kazekage in a whole new light. He admonished himself at the time for misjudging her as a cold schemer. He resolved to make it up to her.

The night of the banquet Naruto arrived dressed to the nine in a formal black and white hakama, he went out of his way to have it tailored specifically for the occasion. The venue was an illustrious ballroom with a tall vaulted ceiling and sculpted pillars that were nothing short of art. When he arrived he was immediately mobbed by dignitaries, politicians, wealthy investors, and every other type of person who could possibly want something from him. He was drowned in conversation after conversation pleading with him for something or other. Some were requesting him to use a clone labor force to expedite housing expansions, others offering to finance any venture he would wish to take up as long as he promised there be returns, and one man even wanted to sign a contract with him to be a mascot for his brand name cereal.

These were the reasons he never attended these types of events if he could avoid it. Coming from a silent existence and then being forced to do the harshest of 180's to hold conversations with multiple people talking to him at once was nothing short of mental agony. Kurama and him could go days, weeks, sometimes even months without even mentally communicating with each other. In his youth Naruto sought to converse with his partner on a regular basis, but the more time passed the more he understood how the fox valued his own solitude. Kurama had spent upwards of a hundred years without speaking before and as such viewed Naruto's constant need for interaction as annoying. Respecting his partner Naruto began to ease off more and more over the years until eventually he found silence relaxing. He doubted he could go a hundred years without speaking, but he hadn't yet been around as long as Kurama.

Seeing Gaara walking around Naruto excused himself from the swarm of people and walked over to his good friend. When he met Gaara's eyes he flashed his friend a grin, but what he couldn't understand is why his long time companion regarded him with such curt eyes. Naruto had then approached him to ask if there was a problem. Gaara looked at him with something between a glare and confusion. He then proceeded to ask Naruto what he thought his reaction would be towards sponsoring a bill that watered down the already weak shinobi programs and defunded some of their most key assets.

Time had stopped for Naruto in that instant. He asked Gaara to see the proposal immediately and Gaara passed him the outline in confusion. Thumbing through it furiously Naruto saw his worst fears come to life. The proposal was almost identical to what it was before with the only inspirations of his that were put into effect were minor at best. At first Naruto couldn't understand what was happening, if she wasn't going to use any of his ideas why bother having gotten them in the first place? Then Naruto saw a banner hanging from the ceiling explaining everything. It read ' **A collaborative effort between our very own Kazekage and Naruto, Hero of the People!'**. Suddenly everything just clicked into place. His eyes started to dart about looking for the Kazekage and when he found her she gave him a smile that said everything.

 _You didn't give me what I wanted most, but I always get something I want._ Naruto had felt such an intense shame that he thought it might crush him. His own idiocy had led to a situation that would further stamp out the best his generation had to offer. He wheeled on Gaara who regarded him with a shocked expression and explained everything. He explained how she got him into her office saying that all three of them were to work on a project, he disclosed all of the suggestions he made and how they were almost entirely disregarded, he described how he thought this was all going to fall through when he walked out of the meeting, and then he admitted to the reason he walked out of the meeting in the first place. When he saw her conniving and calculating eyes as she attempted to seduce him he had chosen to flee before anything had the opportunity to happen. He remembered wanting to physically harm himself for ever doubting his instincts.

Deep down Naruto knew this was his fault. No one else had been in the room with him to see the emotions that played across her face. When he left there was no doubt in his mind she had an angle, but instead of trying to figure out what it was he had let it go rationalizing that there should have been nothing she could do. Someone could have told him that this happened because of the scheming of that shrew of a Kazekage, but Naruto knew in his heart this had happened because he had been complacent. He wasn't willing to believe in the worst in people and that had cost him. He resolved to never make that mistake again.

Naruto left the banquet and in the following weeks Gaara had tried to rally the council (of which he was part) to overturn the passing of what was now known as the 'New Age Shinobi Bill'. Although eight out of twelve members voted to overturn it there was a strict 75% rule to repeal any passed motion. Despite the best of efforts they could not get the last vote required. In the end the Sand Shinobi grew even weaker and the reliance on technology for military might grew. Naruto set back to his duties with a heavy heart and a heavier conscience. Despite Gaara's assurances he knew this was his fault and he would not let himself be used like that again.

* * *

Ozpin had begun to speak which caused Naruto to blink a few times before returning to reality.

"-ester, Dove Bronzewing, Sky Lark. The four of you retrieved the black bishop pieces. From this day forward you will work together as Team Cardinal." Naruto missed the first bit of what was being said, but as he focused he saw the letters CRDL form on a screen behind Ozpin, each below a picture of the boy they corresponded to. "Lead by Cardin Winchester." Ozpin finished. There was applause from the audience as the newly minted Team Cardinal walked off the stage. Naruto readied himself to walk up from his position on the stairs next to the stage.

The whole appointing ceremony appeared to be a mix between formality and congratulations. All of the respective teams had been informed of their groupings before the ceremony started. When he looked back he saw Team Deathstalker standing together. Ruby looked like she could pass out from all of the excitement she appeared to be undergoing.

"Naruto Uzumaki," Ozpin started. Naruto took a breath and walked up the stairs onto the stage. "Pyrrha Nikos, Nora Valkyrie, Lie Ren." Ozpin finished as all four lined up in front of him. Naruto had his hands clasped behind his back instinctively mimicking his team. There was once a time where Naruto had to accept a medal and he awkwardly tried to grab it from the person attempting to hang it from his neck. Sakura basically exploded and beat him into next week saying that if he ever did that again he wouldn't be so lucky. Naruto smirked at the memory.

"You four retrieved the gold rook pieces. Originally we intended to name you Team Normative." The screen Showed Naruto's picture, followed by Pyrrha's, then Ren's, and finally Nora's with the letters NNRV displayed underneath them. Naruto stuck out his tongue as if he had tasted something rancid.

"What's that mean Ren?" Nora whispered quietly while Ozpin paused.

"It means standard or normal regarding to rules and personalities." He quickly explained back. Nora then mimicked Naruto's own disgusted expression.

"However," Ozpin continued. "It seems that you have grown attached to another name and it would truly be a shame to part you from it." Ozpin smiled at the four of them. On the screen the letters changed to NNVR with Ren and Nora's pictures changing place. "Henceforth you four shall be known as Team Nevermore, led by Naruto Uzumaki." There was a round of applause as Nora hugged Ren and Pyrrha gave Naruto a congratulatory punch in the arm. Naruto pretended it hurt and rubbed his arm with a wince as Pyrrha giggled playfully. They made their way up stage and Team Deathstalker lined up by the stairs.

"Finally would Ruby Rose, Blake Belladonna, Yang Xiao Long, and Weiss Schnee please come to the stage." Ozpin orated. As Naruto passed them he gave Ruby a thumbs up, Blake a congratulatory smile, Yang a low five and to Weiss he whispered.

"Congratulations Weiss." Naruto could swear he saw the beginning of a smile as her lips began to curl the slightest bit upward. That potential smile was brutally murdered as she scowled at him and whispered back.

"At least this much is expected." Naruto almost groaned before he remembered it wasn't the time or place for that. As the girls lined up in front of the headmaster he once again began to speak.

"You four all retrieved the white knight pieces. However unfortunate it may seem you will not be able to keep your field name throughout the duration of your stay here." Ozpin informed them. The relief on Weiss' face and the dismay on Yang's were both equally palpable. Ozpin chuckled twice before continuing. "As such from this point you four shall work together as team RWBY, led by Ruby Rose." The absolute look of confusion on Weiss' face when he said that was almost impossible to miss. Ruby looked surprised, confused, and delighted all at the same time. Blake appeared to be congratulatory, but ultimately uninterested whereas Yang…

"I'm so proud of you sis!" She yelled as she embraced Ruby in a big bear hug. Applause could be heard through the entirety of the auditorium. After regarding team RWBY warmly Ozpin pushed his glasses up.

"It looks like things are shaping up to be… an interesting year." Ozpin said as team RWBY walked off the stairs. Just like before, Naruto caught Ruby's eye and gave her a thumbs up. She led her team over to his and just as he was about to say something she reached her arms around his body and buried her head in his chest.

"Mnk oo," Ruby's voice mumbled from the orange Uzumaki symbol on his black shirt. Naruto wrapped his arms around her and gave her a warm embrace. He bent his mouth down to her ear and then whispered.

"Nothing to thank me for Ruby. You should thank your team for trusting you enough to listen. Never abuse that." She pulled herself from his embrace and gave him a resolute nod. He turned to Yang who had watched the scene unfold with a smirk on her face. Not giving her a chance to tease her poor sister or himself he headed her off with teasing of his own. "Well nice try on finishing your grimm before us Firecracker. No dinner for you!" He taunted and stuck his tongue at her.

"You got lucky we didn't work as a team Whiskers! Next time we go head to head you're going down!" She declared as she pointed at him in challenge. Naruto gave an infuriatingly simpering laugh.

"You just let me know when you think you're ready, Yang. Team Nevermore will be ready to remind you who the top bird is!" Naruto challenged back.

"TEAM NEVERMORE FOR LIFE!" Nora shouted as she jumped for joy. She looked to Pyrrha demandingly.

"Go Team Nevermore!" She gave a peppy cheer. Nora's gaze turned to Ren who just returned it blankly. Seconds passed and Nora grew redder and redder as she looked like she was about to explode. Having been with her as long as he had Ren recognized the signs of a Norruption and relented.

"Team Nevermore… yay." He said with the absolute least amount of enthusiasm Naruto thought he could muster. Despite that Nora looked utterly ecstatic and looked to team RWBY like her team had all just unanimously declared war. Ruby's fighting spirit was triggered as she fired back.

"We'll show you! We're gonna kick your butts!" She asserted confidently.

"Yeah you tell em' Rubes!" Yang encouraged her little sister with a bestial grin on her face. When the two looked to Weiss and Blake they both gave stares back so disinterested it was hard to tell they were alive.

"This is childish, let's go already," Weiss said marching away to their assigned dorm. Blake gave a small shrug and followed in tow. Yang looked to Ruby to see what she was going to do only for Ruby to take after them like a missile.

"Wait for meeeee!" She cried as she sped after them. Yang gave a sigh and then turned to Naruto one last time.

"Seriously though Foxy… Thank you. We were all being idiots and you got us to see sense again. You're a good pal," she acknowledged, before she took off in a brusque jog after her team. Naruto gave a gentle smile and then turned to his own team.

"I don't know about you guys but I am down for bed. Let's go find our dorm?" Naruto asked them. Ren groaned in exhausted affirmation. Kurama had slept through the entire ceremony on Naruto's shoulder and still managed an open mawed yawn. The whole group laughed at that and made their way to their dorm where sweet dreams awaited them.

* * *

Naruto was the first to rise at 6:00 AM sharp. The first thing he did was head to the team shower to wash off, leaving Kurama to sleep at the foot of his bed. He was relatively absent of the expected dirt and grime one might acquire after trekking through the Emerald Forest, but still had managed to sweat a bit on their hike back to the starting area. He could have just floated all of them there with Desert Suspension but ultimately decided it was best to hold off on that show of power for the time being.

As Naruto continued his shower he couldn't help but sigh in exhaustion. In the year leading up to his decision to attend Beacon he had read newspapers, magazines, textbooks and basically anything else he could get his hands on to try and learn anything he possibly could about this strange land called Remnant. Despite all of the information he could get from such sources he still had to go out and learn thing from the most primary of sources; the people of Remnant itself.

Just through reading he discovered how technologically advanced this new world he found himself in was. Thus he knew he had to do all of his word of mouth information gathering cloneless. If a street camera caught him in two places at once he might be able to pass it off as a twin, but sending out fifty of himself like he usually did was out of the question. Ultimately he decided even one wasn't worth the risk and resolved to do it himself. He just had anticipated how utterly exhausting the endeavor would be.

Going from person to person introducing himself and asking questions was bad enough, but he had to act like the age he appeared. He couldn't go around asking "Hey can you explain the geopolitical relationship Atlas has with Vale due to its icy tundras?" without seeming like the Remnant's most studious teenager or more than likely identifying himself as an outsider. Anonymity was the name of the game here and if anyone went poking around to see what people knew about him he wanted to be damn sure they wouldn't find anything important.

Due to that, he lived out of a cave in a mountainous area outside of Vale itself. He had tagged a tree near the entrance of Vale that sat in an area completely devoid of cameras. Whenever he entered the city he did it through the main entrance so that would make it seem like he was a frequent visitor from a nearby town at worst.

It really wasn't all that bad for Naruto. He was used to sleeping against a tree when the situation called for it. The fact that he got to sleep in a bedroll in the cave he resided at was almost luxurious for him. He used to sleep in grand tents that he had sealed inside Fūinjutsu storage scrolls, but with his fame came people wanting him to do things for them. His grand tents drew more attention than they were worth until eventually he decided to downsize. Over time he just kept downsizing his accommodations until there was nothing left and he didn't mind that. It was a calm and peaceful way to live. This on the other hand… this was harrowingly exhausting.

Unlike when he had gathered information in Vale he couldn't just take a break at his leisure to recuperate. On a particularly busy day he would talk to three people maybe five minutes a piece. In that one day with Teams RWBY and NNVR he talked about as much as he would talk semiannually. His body maintained its condition to utter and complete perfection. Physically Naruto was the picture of health, but mentally there was nothing he could do to slough off the overbearing mental fatigue.

He gave a weighted sigh as he felt the water beginning to run cold. He finished washing off and then grabbed a nearby towel to dry off. When he finished he threw on a change of boxers and sweatpants but remained shirtless. Naruto had never really paid attention to his figure but his stomach could have been mistaken for being chiseled out of rock. His washboard abs were clearly the result of a diligent lifetime of training. His deltoid were clearly defined as was his collarbone. His biceps and triceps bulged slightly as the skin around his arm gripped them tight. Naruto wasn't the most muscular person you would find by any stretch of the imagination, but he defined what it meant to have a lean muscled physique.

He wanted to do a brusque workout before his team awoke but it was hard to do anything that would really tax him without drawing attention to himself. Before he left the Elemental Nations Lee had given him a gift of a full set of wrist, ankle, and other body weights. He had also given him an all too familiar green jumpsuit that he was guaranteed to not wear for the entirety of his infinite life. He had found out when he had left that Lee and Tenten's son had taken a student of his own. Somehow they had managed to find a 5th generation of children with black bowler cuts and ridiculously bushy eyebrows.

He fastened the weights to his arms and legs, and then made a Tiger seal with his hands. He only pumped a little chakra into the seal to make sure to minimize the amount of weight to avoid any accidents. Despite his best effort he still felt the floor creak beneath him. There wasn't a shred of doubt in his mind that if he pushed them within a fraction of their limits he would fall straight through the floor.

As he was about to set down he spied Pyrrha hugging her pillow with a steady stream of drool flowing out. He almost coughed trying to suppress his laughter at seeing the warrior of whom Weiss had hung such laurels on in such a compromising position. Deciding in that moment that mischief maker was the cover he was most comfortable with he made his move.

He took out his scroll that Ozpin had practically forced upon him and used the camera feature to snap a picture of her. He took one just as she was and then decided to take it a step further. Checking the time on his scroll he saw that he had showered for nearly an hour and it was now 6:55. Deciding he should start to wake his team he poked the spartan in her sleep with one hand still holding his scroll in position.

"Hey Pyrh, time to wake up." He said at a below moderate volume.

"Bwuh?" She sleepily questioned with an absolutely ridiculous face. Naruto snapped the picture immediately and instantly pulled it up to look at it. When he saw her mouth in an O shape with her eyelids half open looking like a complete zombie he burst out into cackling glee. The intense increase in volume caused Pyrrha to wake up with all the more haste as she looked to Naruto who was practically rolling on the floor with laughter. "Naruto, what is going on?!" She asked in mild distress as it seemed like he was having trouble breathing. Wordlessly Naruto held his scroll up to show her the picture he had taken while making sure to keep it out of her reach.

Pyrrha rubbed her eyes as she narrowed them to see what had her partner in such dire straits. When she realized that it was a picture and gleaned its content her face turned almost as red as her hair. "Naruto, you delete that picture this instant!" She commanded him like a disappointed yet highly flustered mother.

"Not even if you paid me the prize pool of all four Mistral Regional Tournaments combined. As a matter of fact I think I will make this your contact picture on my scroll. I can't even imagine a better way to remember you by." Naruto pushed button after button of his partner's rapidly fading patience. Pyrrha had the patience of a saint, but she was nothing before the ministrations of Naruto's godly teasing.

"Don't you dare!" She lunged quickly at him from her bed trying to grab his scroll. When he pulled back faster than she expected she had nowhere to go and started to fall. As she was still somewhat groggy she wasn't exactly sure what happened as she tumbled out of her bed expecting to hit the floor. Her eyes closed for the impact, but it didn't feel like she expected it to. The floor wasn't quite as hard as she expected it to be… _this actually feels pretty nice._ She thought to herself. It took a few seconds for her to realize something was out of place. _Wait… why is the floor so war-_

"Hey Pyr, you alright there?" Naruto asked her bashfully. When she opened her eyes she saw that she was sitting in between Naruto's legs her hands placed on and eyes staring at two positively perfect pectorals. Her eyes slowly wrenched themselves upwards where she saw Naruto looking incredibly embarrassed and uncomfortable. Whereas she had merely approached the color of her hair with her previous blush her face went so red it was hard to tell them apart. She jumped back onto her bed and hid her face behind her hands. She opened slots in between her fingers so she could see from behind them.

"Y-y-yes. I'm f-fine." She stuttered out. This was easily the most embarrassed she had been in her entire life!

"No, that is completely my fault. Sorry for teasing you. I'll delete that picture as an apology." He apologized profusely. Pyrrha gave him her best attempt at a normal smile, but failed and had to hide behind her hands again. "Now before anything el-" Naruto started.

"Bad leader, bad!" A female voice admonished Naruto. Pyrrha and Naruto turned fast enough to get whiplash to find Nora with a horrified expression and Ren eyeing them with curiosity. "It's too soon! You just met! Take her out to dinner first you fox of a man!" Nora berated her captain as he sat on the floor utterly flabbergasted.

 _I made a mistake_. Naruto thought as the situation went from awkward to unbearable.

* * *

"Monsters, deeemons, prowlers of the night. Yes, the creatures of Grimm have many names, but I merely refer to them as prey!" The walrus mustached and physiqued professor gave a bellowing laugh.

 _He better give this lecture more quietly or I'll be the one showing him who is prey._ Kurama threatened grumpily. Kurama could sleep for weeks at a time and he had absolutely no intention of letting this man who was equal parts blubber and hot air distract him from that. Naruto suppressed a yawn and did his absolute best to focus on the professor who seemed to be hellbent on putting his class to sleep. He was 10 seconds into his lecture and Nora was already snoring in her seat next to Ren who was trying his best to indiscreetly wake up her to no avail. Everyone in the room could practically hear the cicadas… barring the grey haired walrus currently lecturing apparently.

"You shall too upon graduating from this prestigious academy!" The Professor promised with another hearty bellow of a laugh. Naruto did his best, he really did. He had slept more last night than he had in recent memory, but it still wasn't enough to hold him back from the sweet embrace of utter darkness. Naruto didn't know how long he had been out but he was brought back to the land of the living by a voice his brain had learned to associate with the purest form of annoyance.

"I do sir!" Weiss said in a voice that wasn't atypical to her, but for some reason seemed off to Naruto. She sounded incredibly angry, and Naruto had made sure to check her for that before class even started so he could steer clear of any potential pains in his ass that she could cause.

"Well then…" The walrus spoke. "Let's find out." A cage behind the professor rattled ominously. "Step forward and face your opponent." Weiss made her way down to the stage as Ruby cheered her on.

"Go on Weiss! Represent Team Ruby!" She cheered her teammate along.

"Ruby! I'm trying to focus!" Weiss snapped at her young leader. Her pitch was a half step higher than it was previously and Naruto realized that she was more frustrated after Ruby had cheered her on for some reason.

"O-oh, uh, sorry," Ruby apologized. Weiss turned to face the cage and the professor announced the start of the fight and then promptly chopped the restraints holding the beast in the cage with his axe.

What ensued was a fairly pathetic fight by Naruto's standards. Weiss attempted to fight the boar head on and was easily losing the contest of strength. Ruby continued to cheer her on which for some reason only added to the ice princess's ire. Eventually a poorly chosen grapple with her rapier trapped between the boar's tusks left her disarmed and without her weapon. The beast charged at her and she rolled out of the way, quickly making a mad dash for her weapon. "Go for its belly! It has no armor on its stomach!" Ruby shouted advice to Weiss from her seat.

"Stop telling me what to do!" Weiss raged back at Ruby with a snarl. The tiny leader shrunk back as the boar once again charged Weiss. This time she was more prepared and used her glyph to stop its charge and knock it onto its belly. Then as advised she used another glyph to boost to the boar's unprotected stomach and impaled it. The grimm started to fade away like they always did.

"Bravo! Bravo! It appears we are indeed in the presence of a true huntress in training." Walrus congratulated Weiss. "With that it seems we have run out of time though. Class dismissed!" Naruto eyed Weiss as if he was looking at something he had seen before. Something tickled at the back of his mind like a memory once forgotten. Weiss stormed past her team and out the room, Ruby chasing after her.

"Hey guys, go on without me. I'll catch back up with you at our dorm." Naruto said. In the short time they had been together Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora had all gotten a sense for when he was willing to talk about something or when a topic was completely not up for discussion. All three recognized it as the latter. Kurama hopped off his shoulder to follow them back to the comfort of Naruto's bed. Pyrrha lingered for a moment as if debating whether or not to say something but eventually followed after Ren and Nora.

Quickly and quietly following after the two girls Naruto had managed to catch up with them undetected just as Ruby appeared to have caught up with Weiss. After watching their back and forth Naruto sighed. He now remembered exactly what it was that was tickling his memory just moments ago. Weiss felt that an unworthy and lesser person had gotten what she deserved. By Ruby being promoted leader over her it was evidence in her mind that there was something others perceived her lacking. She thought the headmaster made a mistake in appointing Ruby over herself as leader. Naruto remembered back to a time when he had seen that fear be realized as the one deemed as unworthy actually became more powerful than the one who believed himself superior. What had followed was years of heartache, pain, and violence between two people who had been friends.

Naruto walked up to a devastated Ruby and put a hand on her shoulder from behind. She jumped slightly and turned to see Naruto standing there with a no-nonsense look on his face. "She is wrong." Naruto stated simply. Ruby looked up to him with shame on her face.

"She's not wrong… I still act like a kid, I have never led anyone before, I'm socially awkward and she has been trained in all of those things. Maybe Professor Ozpin did make a m-" Before Ruby could finish her self deprecating speech Naruto had a finger over her lips to shush her. He didn't look down at her with warmth, but with a battle hardened conviction so intense that it scared Ruby.

"There is a difference between you and her Ruby. You want to see the best in people and are determined to help those around you. The fact that you care so much to put in so much effort to uplift those around you is what makes you the better leader. Ozpin knew that you could be taught to lead, but he doubted that Weiss could be taught to care unless she got knocked down a peg." Naruto assured the young reaper. Ruby couldn't explain it but it felt like she was getting a personal pep talk from a teacher; she felt like she was learning from someone who had experienced far more than she had and was telling her that they had come through a similar situation ok. She closed her eyes and decided she would have faith.

"Thanks Naruto. You really know how to make me feel better." Ruby said with a slight blush as she stared at her feet. Naruto gave her a smile that warmed her from stem to stern.

"If I couldn't help you guys out what would the point of being here be?" Naruto gave her a different smile this time. This one made Ruby feel cold and empty. It was a smile that lacked emotion or purpose. Ruby blinked once and saw a familiar cheeky grin across his face. Had she imagined that? "In the meantime I have a dobe to knock down a peg or twenty." Naruto growled and took off in Weiss' direction.

Ruby blinked one more time and then smiled to herself. She would just have to learn to be a leader like Naruto said! She cared about Weiss, and Blake, and Yang of course! She cared about Naruto and his team, for they all had helped them with in the Emerald Forest. Not knowing something wasn't a problem, but being so sad she didn't focus on fixing things was. She slapped her cheeks with both hands to fire herself up.

"I'm gonna be the best leader ever!" She declared and marched her way back to her dorm.

"Interesting." Ozpin said quietly to himself. He had seen young Ruby Rose distressed and was going to take it upon himself to help her through her troubles, but Mr. Uzumaki had swooped in before he even had the opportunity. With a less than twenty second speech he was able to address the problem, accurately guess his own thought process in promoting Ms. Rose as leader, and fixed her mood in one fell swoop.

The boy was an enigma wrapped within a paradox. As soon as Ozpin got the slightest idea as to what kind of person Uzumaki was the rug was swiftly yanked from beneath him. At first he saw a perceptive man with a no nonsense attitude. He had called Ozpin out from his hiding place that he identified quickly upon entering the room. At this point Ozpin had put up his guard and prepared himself to gather what information he could during the interview process. Then Mr. Uzumaki appeared nothing but a nervous boy trying to earn his place in Beacon. Bizarre semblance and perceptiveness aside nothing really stood out about the child. His mannerisms, his way of a speaking, and everything inbetween felt shockingly normal.

From there they moved onto the aura test and the boy became a bundle of transparent nerves. Ozpin chalked that up to nervousness at scoring below average at first. _That was the most wrong I have been in quite some time_ Ozpin thought to himself amusedly. The first aura measurement tool had short circuited. Ozpin let the boy believe that he believed it was because it was defective; it was not. Ozpin had made sure to test it on another student long before Naruto entered his office. Ozpin let him believe it because it got him to take the test a second time with the same scale. At this point the headmaster already knew the boy's massive aura had shorted the scale, but providing him the same scale to try again revealed an incredibly valuable piece of information.

It was at that point Ozpin had proven the boy was able to control his aura. From short circuiting a scale to merely making it unable to read its value. When most students entered Beacon Academy their aura control was little to none. Most used it as a static shield to prevent or recover from damage. The more advanced students may have learned how to control their semblance to some degree and would channel their aura into that. Mr. Uzumaki seemed to be able to limitedly control how intensely his soul manifested itself which was something not expected from any student before their third year.

The final scale had grabbed Ozpin's attention irrevocably. Regardless of whether or not Glynda believed him the truth remained just that. The boy had scored 9,001 on the measurement when he was clearly trying his hardest to hold back. This meant that his aura surely surpassed, potentially even eclipsed that number. From that point forward Naruto Uzumaki had become his number one fascination. A mystery that he would and must unravel until all of its secrets were laid bare.

Two days following the boy showed three distinct abilities in the Emerald Forest. His first two were abilities derived from his semblance; he had the ability to manipulate polarity with himself as the epicenter and he had the ability to control sand. Much to Ozpin's chagrin and ultimate impressment the boy made sure to primarily use only his polarity semblance for the duration of their test in the Emerald Forest. He did not reveal the extent of his sand manipulation and he did not expose any hand to hand combat skills. The closest thing he had revealed to that is the ability to use throwing knives when he threw one at Ms. Nikos. However the last ability he had revealed was the one that had Ozpin more curious than his absurd aura or his powerful and diverse semblance.

Naruto Uzumaki revealed himself not only a leader that could take command of a situation, but one that valued bettering others over distinguishing himself. _"We're going to go there to assist if necessary, but unless it becomes life or death we're leaving this to them. Fighting their battles for them won't make them any stronger."_ Ozpin recalled the boy saying. Any other student would have either sought to distinguish himself further by defeating another powerful adversary or rushed to aid the enemy team to keep them all safe. Although Mr. Uzumaki was concerned about team RWBY he was concerned about them in a long term sense. Leaving them to face a life threatening danger to prove themselves was a risk he was willing to take.

Beyond that he forced them to fight undermanned to show them the importance of cooperation. He could imagine some of the best teachers in all of remnant having difficulty matching his lesson in impact and sheer effectiveness. Rousing himself from his thoughts Ozpin realized he was already in motion. His feet carrying him towards the direction of Ms. Schnee and as a result Mr. Uzumaki.

"What else will you show me?" Ozpin asked aloud.

* * *

Naruto chased after Weiss as fast as a normal student could. After a minute he had managed to catch her on the stairway headed to the roof. "Weiss!" He called out to her causing her to pause. She turned and regarded him coldly.

"What is it you want?" She snarled at him. Naruto walked up the few remaining steps so that he was just a few steps below her equaling out their height. If Weiss was a lesser person she would have balked at the oppressiveness the he exuded standing before her. Weiss thought she was about to threaten him when his face softened into a small frown that looked much more sad than it had any right to.

"I need you to listen to me." He said simply. He tried his hardest to impart just how much Weiss needed to listen to him. He wanted her to understand how important what he was about to say was.

"Why would I listen to you? I understand I might not be the most… pleasant person at times but you have been almost exclusively antagonistic to me since I've known you! One or two shows of kindness does not make up for that!" Weiss declared angrily. Naruto looked her dead in the eyes.

"I am begging you to listen to me. I will do anything you ask afterwards. If you want me to leave Beacon I will pack my bags and go." Naruto said earnestly. Weiss was shocked by his commitment, but also more than happy to have an opportunity to finally be rid of him.

"Fine, I will listen. What do you wish to tell me?" She asked snootily. Her voice sounding like she was deigning to grace him with her time. Naruto sighed and then looked away from her.

"This is the story about my best friend… His name is Sasuke. I've known Sasuke since I was around eight years old. Where I come from we entered a combat training school around that age and that was where we met." Weiss was more than a little shocked to hear Naruto had been learning to fight since he was eight but allowed him to continue.

"When we first met I was nothing short of incompetent. I failed at everything they taught in class, my hand to hand skills were by far the worst, and I was the only student in the class who had not yet gained access to my semblance. Sasuke on the other hand came from a prestigious clan of some of the most powerful warriors. His semblance gave him the ability to perceive more than the human eye ever could. He was blessed with talent and the knowhow to use it, but even then he worked hard to achieve his goals."

"Sasuke and I got along like cats and dogs. He was every bit the warrior I wanted to be. Where I failed he excelled, where everyone wanted to be his friend no one wanted to be mine, as every girl in our class fawned over him I was barely a tolerated nuisance." Despite Weiss' lack of affection for the boy she had trouble believing all of this. Naruto had distinguished himself as a capable leader and powerful combatant during their time in the Emerald Forest. While she tried to reconcile her view of him with how he described himself he continued on.

"Eventually when we were twelve we got placed on the same team. Where I come from we formed four man teams like we do at Beacon, but because we were so young each team had an instructor who would help teach them and follow them around on missions. Through time Sasuke and I bonded together on our life or death missions and we eventually recognized the other as our best friend. For awhile, things were good… no, they were better than good… I had finally gotten the friend I never had and we each pushed each other to get better; things were perfect." Naruto sighed as if reliving a happy memory. His expression soured as he continued on.

"Eventually I learned from a second teacher who was my godfather. He had abilities and an attitude that much more closely resembled mine than my original instructure. Under his guidance I was able to grow more powerful faster than I ever had before. The stronger I got the more frustrated Sasuke became. Eventually his frustration got the better of him and we came to blows." Naruto admitted sadly. Weiss was appalled at his friend's behavior. She didn't necessarily respect Ruby but she would never resort to violence over it.

"When the battle was over our teacher threw both of us into a giant metal water tank. His technique pierced right through it, whereas mine..." A brilliant blue ball of light appeared in his hand. It seemed to swirl faster than her eyes could track, its center seeming alive with boundless energy. "My attack blew out the entire back of it. When all was said and done the destructive force of my technique was greater than his. He couldn't take being weaker than someone he had once thought so inferior and so he ran away to become a criminal."

"I chased after him because he was my best friend. I refused to let him make the biggest mistake of his life. When I finally caught up to him he had fallen into madness. We once again came to blows except this time he had the intent to kill me. To be honest he got pretty damn close too." Naruto pulled down his shirt enough so that Weiss could see a scar right above it. Whereas before Weiss was appalled now she was merely struck speechless. The idea of best friends trying to kill each other over a contest of aptitude was too much for her to comprehend.

"The point I wanted to get across to you is that I understand you come from a family that has a legacy you feel responsible for upholding. I know that part of you feels like Ruby being picked over you for the job of leader is a slight to your aptitude. Most importantly I can see your rage influencing your actions and it is causing you to move closer and closer to someone I know you don't want to be. You weren't chosen to be leader not because of any problems with aptitude. You fell short when it came to your willingness to humble yourself for the good of others. You have the potential to be one of the greatest warriors and greatest leaders of this entire school, but before that you're going to have to learn to follow someone else." Naruto took a deep breath and then finished.

"Because you lack the ability to empathise with those who would follow your lead it would be impossible for you to understand what it felt like to have to listen to a hard choice. Sometimes it really takes more strength to follow than to lead. Once you get that I know you'll be kicking butt and taking names!" Naruto assured her with a grin. He refocused his eyes on Weiss and saw that she looked like she had been physically stricken. He waited in agony for her response. He wasn't the most eloquent of people, but he had tried to speak from the heart. After what felt like an eternity Weiss finally responded.

"Thank you Naruto… I think you've given me a lot to think about." She said in a cautious, quiet tone. Naruto sighed thinking that was all he was going to get until he heard her continue. "Ruby might not be the leader I want, but that just means it is my job to help her until she can be. I can lead her by example as I follow her!" Weiss concluded in some form of roundabout logic. Naruto chuckled at how silly it sounded, but she wasn't wrong.

"Are we okay then, Weiss?" Naruto asked carefully. The Schnee heiress nodded at him.

"I think I may have misjudged you Naruto. I appreciate your setting me straight." She admitted and bowed her head slightly. Naruto burst out into the happiest smile he had made in a decade. For once he had put forth his best and someone had been affected in a positive way. It felt like a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders as he continued to beam in an utterly genuine manner.

His euphoria lasted briefly as what Weiss said next brought him crashing back down to Remnant. "You said I could ask you to do anything if I listened and I did. Now I want you to tell me what that 'dobe' thing you've been calling me means!" She demanded. Naruto's life and happiness flashed before his eyes. It couldn't end like this! He had just had something go so perfectly right! How could Kami curse him with something so utterly wrong!

"How about I tell you next week?" Naruto asked hopefully.

"Tell me now." Weiss stonily replied.

"Three days?" Naruto continued to pray.

"Now." Weiss' eyes narrowed.

"Tomorrow?" Naruto almost begged.

" **Now**." Weiss practically growled at him.

"One hour, just one hour from now!?" Naruto groveled desperate to avoid what he knew would come next.

"Naruto Uzumaki you will tell me now or so help me I WILL end you." Weiss threatened. Naruto said his last words in his head and sent one last prayer that Kami be merciful to his tortured soul.

"Well… where I come from it is used as a noun." Naruto admitted. Weiss nodded for him to continue. "I'm sorry to say but it is also _kind of_ an insult." Weiss had figured it was at this point. Probably something about her being rude or pretentious. She waved her hand in a circle motioning for him to continue. "Weiss I just wanted to say I see you in a whole new light. You are a magnificent person and I think that in time we could become great f-"

"Naruto tell me right now!" Weiss interrupted and demanded. Mouth moving as fast as lightning Naruto replied.

"Itmeansdeadlastokthanksbye!" He then proceeded to jump off a 6 story flight of stairs. Weiss would probably have guessed he used his semblance to slow himself down right as he reached the bottom as he seemed to hover briefly at the end. However that would imply Weiss was paying the slightest bit of attention to anything other than a burning rage that had ignited her like a volcano.

"NAAAAAARUUUUTTOOOOO!" Weiss shrieked, and using her glyphs boosted down the flight of stairs to chase after him. Onlookers to the incident that day would swear they saw a yellow flash being chased by a bright white bullet. Thus Naruto's first day as a member of Team NNVR concluded with him being chased by the resident duelist of their to be sister team RWBY.

"Hoho!" A certain walrus mustached man said from his position next to the roof entrance. "We've certainly got an interesting bunch this year!"


	10. To Trust is to Hope

**_Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or Naruto and their rights belong to their respective holders. If I did you can bet Blake wouldn't have gone through the same exact character arc fifteen times over only to forget it immediately._**

 **Edit: Alright... buddy... let's talk. Do you remember when I said this was my first fic? You do? Great. It really, REALLY shows here. This chapter is bad, atrocious. I get nightmares when I read this chapter and I get night terrors thinking of someone reading it. It's painfully, awfully bad. I want to rewrite it — I WILL rewrite it... but not now. Rewrites are where fics go to die. When I finish this story I will revamp this absolute travesty to humankind that would have been included in the Geneva Convention had it been written in time to be.**

 **So understand that I know this chapter sucks. Nobody hates it more than I do, I promise. I tried to go for a scene that dealt with Naruto's fragile mental state and botched it horribly. If you are easily offended by awful writing, read the TLDR I'm going to give next paragraph. You won't miss anything, this chapter blows. I did get better the more I wrote. Writing is a muscle; I was loose and flabby before I started excercising my writing ability. Now I'm less so. If you want to read something better written from start to finish, try F &C.**

 **TLDR: Naruto kicks Cardin's ass in class. Haha such funny. Naruto has an emotional breakdown answering questions to kids because... I don't have the best reasoning for it. His mental state is fragile and he's not used to people approaching him? It's bad. Do yourself a favor and skip this POS chapter.**

 _ **Greetings and salutations friends and compatriots. I bid you welcome to chapter 9 of the character study known as**_ _ **An Old Fox's New Trick**_ _ **. Now before you read this chapter, I want to give a warning that this is a bit more of a Debby downer than most of the other chapters to date. There was a lot to accomplish and breaking this down into two separate chapters just didn't feel right. Somewhere between 8-10k words a chapter has been feeling just about right and I'm probably going to keep it there.**_

 _ **With that being said special thanks to RandomPerson44, Kitsune-taicho, and Saiyan-Shinobi-Shinigami for your reviews. I always appreciate the extra effort you guys take to let me know exactly what you liked about my work or how much you liked it. Also I'm sorry to the random guest who facepalmed at my over 9000 joke, I could not help myself. With that being said let us get started on chapter 9 of OFNT.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 9**

 **To Trust is to Hope**

 **AKA: Seriously, read the edit**

Naruto was currently sitting in Professor Goodwitch's combat class trying to make his tall frame as small as possible. After an exceedingly elementary lesson on aura and its combat applications, Goodwitch was looking to pick a pair of people for the first spar. Naruto knew that Ozpin was undoubtedly going to try to probe deeper and deeper into his talent pool and he was hellbent on not letting the old man get his way. He continued to avoid eye contact as he diligently focused on a paper that contained his nonexistent notes as he hid eyes behind Kurama's tail as an extra barrier between him and the devil teacher.

 _Don't you even think about it Glynda. Don't you even begin to think about it. It is the first day of this stupid class you better not fu-_

"Would Mr. Uzumaki please come down to the combat ring to demonstrate to the class," Goodwitch called out so the whole class could hear. Naruto slammed his forehead on the desk multiple times until he reluctantly started to rise. Kurama jumped lithely onto the desk and spread out in a stretch. The fox was grinning at him as he walked down the stairs like a man facing his execution.

 _Good luck out there, Gaki. I know it might be hard for you but try to keep a low profile._ Kurama taunted his jinchūriki. Naruto scowled back at his kitsune companion and continued to trudge down the stairs. Naruto stood at one of the two designated starting positions on the concrete stage. He sat cross legged and pouted like a four year old child. A majority of the class laughed in one way or another.

 _Fine. You lot want to play it this way? Let's play._ Naruto thought to himself.

"Mr. Winchester, would you be Mr. Uzumaki's opponent?" Goodwitch called out to the class again. A burnt orange haired boy Naruto remembered seeing at the initiation ceremony walked down to the stage with a huge mace hanging from his back. Naruto had seen very few people wield such a large and heavy weapon with any sort of proficiency. Zabuza's blade surely wasn't as heavy as that giant hunk of metal. The only threatening weapon he remembered with anything close to that size was Samehada. Naruto actually had actually inherited the blade from Bee when he had passed away. He didn't particularly want it at the time but it had grown so attached to Gyūki that he basically had no choice.

"The rules of the spar will be as follows; The first person to reduce their opponent's aura to the red will win. Alternatively either person can forfeit-" Goodwitch saw Naruto's eyes sparkle. "Only if their Aura has entered the yellow." She cut off his avenue of escape. She had dealt with another blonde who had blatantly forfeited at the start of a match once before and she would not allow it to happen again. "Finally the victor can be determined either by ring-out or overwhelming victory where they threaten an obviously lethal blow." Glynda finished.

Naruto was actually surprised the tiny scroll he had been given could read his 'aura' as it were. He guessed that after his showing in Ozpin's office he had deemed it fit to give him some state of the art device. Shaking himself from his thoughts he once again set out to pester Goodwitch.

"Can't I just forfeit now? That lunk of metal is scary!" Naruto whined from his position on the floor. The class once again fell into chittering laughter. Cardin's face hardened as he looked at his opponent.

"What are you, scared?!" Cardin jeered at Naruto while physically and figuratively looking down on him. Naruto rolled his eyes.

"I literally just said your oversized hunk of metal was scary. Did you figure out I was scared all on your own there kid?" Naruto grumbled with annoyance. Despite him calling Cardin a kid he was conducting himself with all the maturity of a small child at the moment.

"What did you say!?" Cardin shouted at the seated Naruto. Goodwitch gave an exasperated sigh as she realized Ozpin had been right. She had been tasked with trying to find out more about Mr. Uzumaki in her combat class and Ozpin had warned her that he would be difficult. At that immediate moment Goodwitch thought she had seen the worst of it...

Boy was she wrong.

"Conduct yourselves like the huntsmen you are training to become boys. Fighters, ready?" Goodwitch commanded icily. Cardin reluctantly complied as he readied himself into a fighting stance, pulling his mace from his back. Naruto responded to her words as well, but he chose to respond by going from the seated position to lying on the ground. Glynda's eyebrow twitched in annoyance. "I said figh-"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you," Naruto snarked from his position on his back. "This is going to take less than five seconds, then you're somehow going to find a way to complain and I'm sure this whole process will get more annoying in the future. I've accepted it, I've embraced it, I'm ready to live it." Naruto gave an overly forced exasperated sigh as some of the classmates burst into laughter, others ooooh'ed, Yang wolf whistled and Nora shouted something about breaking legs. Glynda's patience was at its end by this point and she curtly started the countdown.

"3, 2, 1, fight." With that, Cardin took off like a cannonball ready to smash right through his opponent even as he lay on the ground. Anyone who looked to Naruto saw him holding up his left hand up with his palm out. After one second passed his thumb dropped down and only four fingers remained standing, in the next his pinky finger dropped down to join it. By the time he had reached two fingers up he had held up his right hand. Cardin was upon him and hefted his massive weapon above his head to smash it down to the ground where the boy lay mocking him.

Right as he started to do just that he was flung back by force that acted on his entire body. He was blown back and before he could blink he found himself on his ass less than a foot away from the stage. When he looked back to Naruto he found his hands cupped around the back of his head as if he were napping. Naruto directed his gaze to Professor Goodwitch who looked at him with an expression cold enough to freeze fire. "I won!" He cheered and jumped to his feet. He started swinging his legs exaggeratedly as he strutted back to his desk.

At this point in time most of the class had erupted into boisterous laughter. Ren sighed knowing this would create nothing but trouble, Nora booed that he didn't break his legs, Yang was trying to remember how to breathe in between her laughing fits, Weiss sighed and filed her nails, Ruby congratulated him, Blake smirked, and Pyrrha looked nervous… and for good reason.

Something about seeing him make such a mockery of her class broke what little remained of Glynda's self restraint. "What are you doing?!" She practically hissed at Naruto as he was halfway up the stairs to his desk. Naruto turned around, pointed to himself and gave a look of utter confusion. His face alone practically begged the question "Me? What did I do?"

Whereas previously Professor Goodwitch had given him an icy glare the look she now fixed upon him was rapidly approaching absolute zero. "It seems that your semblance gives you a natural advantage with the current rule set Mr. Uzumaki." Glynda's teeth ground together. "Since both of you are at full aura let us try that again. This time however Mr. Uzumaki, a ring out does not constitute a victory for you."

Naruto cupped his hands to his cheeks with a look of mock mortification. "No ring outs?! Whatever shall I do?!" He cried out. The class had descended into such maddening laughter that it was basically a circus at this point. Glynda bent her riding crop to an extreme angle in between hands, grasped so tightly they were turning white. Meanwhile Cardin's face had turned maroon.

"I am going to demolish you." Cardin seethed at his blonde opponent. Naruto rubbed his head in embarrassment.

"I really am sorry about this. I am sure you are strong and all and I don't want to embarrass you. This is all just bad luck really," Naruto apologized sincerely. The fact remained that Goodwitch was the key to getting something he wanted. Her no-nonsense attitude made her the easiest to whip into a frenzy. Naruto needed her absolutely livid for his plan to work.

Cardin meanwhile did not take the apology as an apology. He interpreted it as a taunt and was practically a bull that had seen red at this point. He was ready to charge as soon as the match started. Glynda told the fighters to ready themselves. At the very least she was less annoyed seeing that Uzumaki was actually standing this time. With a deep breath and a well grounded fear of what was going to happen next she started the countdown.

"3, 2, 1, begin." Glynda announced. As soon as the word 'begin' had left her mouth Cardin made a mad dash across the stage to Naruto. In mere seconds he was upon him and swung his bludgeon down in a cross slash. With practiced ease Naruto sidestepped the blow and kicked Cardin's legs out from under him. Cardin stumbled but managed to catch a knee. Cardin heard Naruto start to speak and whirled his head around to locate his opponent and start his next attack. What he saw was an outstretched palm right above his body.

"Shinra Tensei." Naruto said neutrally. Just like that Cardin felt the weight of the world on his body and fell to the ground, his body sprawled flat like a pancake. The floor beneath him cracked and his aura took a nasty hit almost dropping to the yellow having saved his face from the intense impact. Naruto reached into his satchel to grab a kunai. With lackadaisical purpose he knelt down and held the kunai to Cardin's throat.

"Please tell me this qualifies as overwhelming." Naruto implored the professor. Glynda nodded and Naruto closed his hand releasing the technique. Slowly but surely Cardin stood up and fixed Naruto with an intense glare before trudging back to his seat. Naruto turned to look at the professor expectantly. She returned his look with an arched eyebrow.

"What? No announcing me victor? No combat analysis? No piece of paper with a giant red 'A+' plastered on it?" Naruto complained haughtily. Once more regarding him with the intensity of a blizzard she turned her gaze to Cardin.

"Mr. Winchester, you allowed yourself to be caught off guard by his semblance and were thus displaced in the first round with minimal effort. If you had anchored yourself you could have forced Mr. Uzumaki to either approach you or exhaust himself trying to displace you.

In the second round you recklessly charged at him even after knowing what his semblance did. The close proximity allowed him to increase the intensity of his technique and your reckless swing left you off guard. Think about your fights more tactically and consider investing in some form of ranged option." Professor Goodwitch concluded. She turned to see Naruto preening with his hands clasped behind his back, his chest thrust forward as if prepared to receive an accolade.

"You may return to your seat Mr. Uzumaki. The only advice I have for you is to take this seriously. People will look to put their lives in your hands. Do not walk around acting like a child." She rebuked him. Naruto rolled his eyes.

"Sheesh, two victories in under ten seconds and I still get criticized, tough crowd." Naruto complained as he skipped back to his seat. There was a light chuckling throughout her class and Glynda was thoroughly at her wits end.

"Class dismissed," She said with finality. As her class filtered out of the room she let out an exhausted groan. Glynda was done with this day and was ready for a drink. Unfortunately for her she wasn't quite sure absinthe would be strong enough to make her forget about the day she just had.

* * *

"That was absolutely savage!" Yang exclaimed with wicked glee. She didn't have anything against the poor sap Naruto just wiped the floor with, but something about seeing Naruto practically lording his dominance over the human pancake just did things to her. The sisters seemed to be in agreement that what Naruto did was fantastic, but with slightly different connotation.

"Naruto you're soooo strong! How did you get so strong!?" Ruby gushed at him. Naruto chuckled as he was reminded the first time he had seen how much stronger than him Ero-Sensei was. Still he needed to keep up his guard to not get caught. Figuring that the truth was the best lie he went with that.

"Where I came from we entered a junior hunter training school at the age of eight. Some students would enter even earlier than that. Once you got into the school you graduated as soon as you were good enough. The standard age to graduate was twelve, but some would pass the final exam much earlier. After you graduated from that school you entered your huntsman teams. At that point in our village you were pretty much a huntsman." Naruto explained simply. To him it was really no big deal because that was just the way the world, well his world, worked. When he stopped walking to look at the faces of the other seven he quickly remembered that was not the case in Remnant. The girls and Ren stared back at him with varying looks of shock, disbelief and horror.

"You can't form a hunter team of twelve year old kids! Let alone younger" Weiss shuddered in horror. Naruto saw the affirmation across everyone's face and quickly jumped in to placate them.

"Well it wasn't exactly like teams at Beacon. We had teams of four just like here, but one of them was an instructor who would shadow you on all your missions and train you for the next few years." The group let out a collective sigh of relief. Ren was curious about something Naruto had said though.

"How young did they let people graduate?" Ren inquired. The heads of everyone in the group turned to him. "You said it in such a way that makes it seem like some people graduated to their teams before they were eight." Like he had cast a spell everyone slowly looked back tomorrow with complex expressions of terror and wonder. At this point Naruto was strongly debating lying, but that didn't change the fact he was absolutely terrible at it. It wouldn't be hard for him to not tell the truth, but it would be pretty obvious that he didn't. Steeling his resolve he ripped the bandaid off.

"The record was actually set by the instructor of my team." Naruto informed the group while futily praying that would placate them. When they all looked at him to continue he did so begrudgingly. "He graduated the school at the age of five, was a huntsman by the time he was six, and a member of the elite ops team when he was thirteen." Naruto spit the words out so fast he hoped someone wouldn't have heard it. Of course the shinobi would have no such luck.

"FIVE!?" The group exploded simultaneously. Even the quiet Ren couldn't help but raise his voice at that. Naruto sighed and spoke loudly.

"Any chance we can continue this conversation in the dorms? The headmaster is basically ravenous to get new information about me and I'd prefer to make it as difficult for him as possible." His tone was glum, his group was confused, but they all agreed and made their way to the dorm anyway.

"Why is the headmaster so interested in you?" Blake asked cautiously. They hadn't yet reached the dorms but Naruto figured it was a good chance to let Ozpin know that he knew. If everything worked out as intended it would be a necessary step.

"Even though I went to a hunter training school, my village doesn't have transcripts. It is also hidden away from the rest of the world so it basically just looks like I appeared in his office one day. As far as my records are concerned I functionally started to exist the day I was interviewed by him." Naruto explained. Upon hearing the confession Blake was on full alert. As someone who had entered Beacon much the same way she was scared of someone else who could say the same. She had fled a terrorist organization and committed a life of crime. With Naruto's power it wouldn't be hard to believe he could have done something even worse.

"Why doesn't your village have transcripts?" Ruby asked in simple innocence. Considering that was a relative softball of a question Naruto resolved to give an answer long enough to get them to their dorms.

"I came from a place called Konohagakure." Ren and Blake's eyes lit up with recognition.

"The Village Hidden in the Leaves." Blake defined for the group. Naruto still wasn't sure how she knew the language but decided he would get to that later.

"What she said. I am sure you can imagine how a village with the word 'hidden' in the name would feel about talking about their training programs." The problem with that statement was the implication was blatantly false. The Hidden Leaf was publically known and interacted with all sorts of people. Knowing he was intentionally leading them astray his voice couldn't help but crack a little when he said it. He cursed himself for not ever learning such a basic life skill. There was nothing he really ever felt worth lying about in his old life!

Blake was torn. She could tell Naruto wasn't being completely honest, but the one night she spent talking to him had convinced her he wasn't a bad guy. Ren on the other hand also suspected the spiky blonde, but he was more worried about the leader of his team willfully lying to them. Ren would have to put his life in Naruto's hand at some point. Even worse than that he would have to trust him with Nora's life. Ren resolved to confront his leader soon.

"Anyways the village would refuse to release anything resembling a transcript so I just had to put on the application that I basically wasn't at liberty to discuss particulars. I informed him I had experience with leadership, combat, and more life or death situations than anyone probably should. Apparently that was enough to get me in the door." Naruto shrugged. He really wasn't even sure why that was enough to get him an interview. He could have been a spy or some mastermind hellbent on world domination. They really should screen their students better before someone took advantage of that.

"What do you mean near death experiences?" Pyrrha asked worriedly. Naruto gave a heaving sigh. This was going to go on forever. Deciding to make the best of a bad situation he put forth a proposition.

"Look, I honestly don't like talking about my past much," They all showed some sign of guilt at poking around his life so much. "But I understand where you are coming from. So once we reach the dorms we can all hang out and you can all ask one question." There was a small celebration between Ruby, Nora and Yang. Pyrrha smiled at the idea of learning more about her partner. Blake, Weiss, and Ren started brainstorming the most pertinent question they could each ask.

"But!" Naruto jolted them all back to attention with a devious voice. "Each of you will have to answer a question from me in return. I may or may not save that for a later date too." Ruby swallowed nervously whereas Yang just shot him a grin.

"I'm an open book, Whiskers; you ask I tell!" She declared proudly. Naruto laughed and remembered that was exactly how he had lived for the longest of times. He still begrudged the circumstances that had taken away such simple bliss from him.

"Yeah, yeah, Firecracker. We'll see about that," He taunted the blonde. Yang playfully punched his shoulder whereas he merely rolled his eyes. After another minute of walking they all made it to the Nevermore dorm. They each had placed their beds in the corners of the room and each respectively went to sit on their own beds. The exception was Nora who sat on Ren's along with him. Ruby took Nora's vacant bed while Yang scooted up next to Naruto. Weiss and Blake both leaned against doors, the bathroom and entrance respectively.

"Well since I am the one under fire here I guess I will choose the order. For the sake of my sanity I guess I'll start with Pyrrha." Naruto turned to look at her on her bed. "Ask away Pyr."

Pyrrha had decided her question pretty much the moment she had heard him mention it. "What were the near death experiences you mentioned?" Pyrrha asked with a concerned expression. Naruto sighed. On one hand he appreciated the fact that she was such an earnest person and cared about his well being so quickly, but on the other this question was an absolute bitch to answer.

"Because of village secrets I will have to leave out some details, but I will describe the more important ones." Pyrrha winced at the implication that he had so many near death experiences . Naruto started by rehashing the story he told Weiss with less detail. From there the next story was his first real mission fighting Zabuza and Haku. After that, he told them about how he had fought with a bloodthirsty maniac who had been Shukaku's contractor and how he had mellowed out and they had become fast friends. Finally, he skipped the other dozen in between and told them the most important one.

"Sasuke and I had finally saved our village from an ancient grimm so powerful it had lived for millennia. When the dust settled we disagreed on what to do. The leaders of the village were incapacitated by the fight and he wanted to kill them. His logic was that their inaction had led to such a powerful grimm going unchecked. He wanted to rule in their stead to guarantee nothing fluke like that would happen. Unlike Sasuke, I didn't blame the leaders for what happened. I argued that it wasn't our place to decide who lived and who died. Neither of us would yield so Sasuke declared a fight to the death. We fought and I refused to land a killing blow. The price of that was losing my right arm." Naruto finished sorrowfully. He flexed his right hand remembering what it had felt like to lose it.

"Is that a robot arm!?" Nora practically screamed in excitement. Naruto chuckled at her enthusiasm and was grateful for the easy question.

"Yeah it is. Lost my old one so the village whipped up a fancy new one for me." Naruto explained. Though not a lie this was once again misleading. Tsunade Baa-Chan had made him an arm out of Hashirama cells when he first lost it, but when he unlocked his Rinnegan he found the Asura path offered him similar functionality without needing to wrap his arm in bandages all the time. He still kept some of the cells within his arm as it allowed him to use wood jutsu when the need arose.

"All right then, since you gave me an easy one I will shoot you one back. Are you and Ren together?" Naruto asked Nora. It sounded simple in his head at the very least. Apparently it was much more complicated.

"Well we are together! But not together-together," She nodded sagely. Naruto looked to Ren for clarification and he merely shrugged.

"Pyrrha, you get a tough one. I took some time to look into your past in Mistral and found out you were ridiculously famous. Did that ever make you feel alone?" Naruto asked. Pyrrha's breath caught in her throats and her body turned to lead. Just like that Naruto had asked the question that would reveal her darkest secret. Of course she had felt alone, she fled to Beacon out of pure hope that she could avoid feeling alone like that again. Before she could even think of answering Naruto spoke again.

"Don't answer me now. Do it when you feel like you are ready to tell me. Just know I won't let you feel alone. To be honest I doubt anyone else here would let you feel that way either." Naruto gave her a smile warm enough to melt away her insecurity. His smile and words promised a different life than she had in Mistral. In that moment she resolved herself to believe him

"Yeah Pyrrha! We're going to be the best friends! We can go weapon shopping, do target practice together, ooh oooooh we could even spar!" Ruby squealed excitedly. Pyrrha and Naruto laughed at Ruby for separate reasons. Pyrrha was indescribably happy that someone would could so genuinely want to be her friend, whereas Naruto found it funny that being friends with Ruby was essentially the same as being a training partner.

"My little sister is a weapons nut with no social skills! Where did I go wrong raising her!?" Yang cried as she mock fainted, her head falling into Naruto's lap. Resisting the instinctual urge to stroke her hair like Kurama's fur Naruto looked down at her grinning face. Ruby rambled off complaints about her sister's accusation when Yang asked a question of her own. "So did you have a girl you liked back at home, Naruto?"

Naruto was kind of shocked Yang actually used his name for once. He then thought back to the past. He remembered a lifetime of missed opportunities. The question about the times he nearly died felt less personal than this. To be honest he wasn't even sure he was willing to answer. He had just met these people and this was far too personal a question. _Naruto-boy… tell them. These here are good folk and hopefully we'll be with them for a long time to come. After everything we've been through you should trust me when I say you need to remember how to open up._ Gyūki conveyed to him mentally. With a true melancholy Naruto started to tell a story as if it were a funeral procession.

"There was a girl named Hinata who was a hunter like me. She had liked me since the time she was eight. As we grew up through the challenges of our lives we grew closer and closer. One time there was a threat to our village so powerful that only I could stand against it. When I was beaten Hinata stepped in to fight this threat to save my life. The gap in their power… it was as bad as what you saw between Cardin and I today. I asked her why she had come to save me, I warned her that she was no match! That was the moment she told me she loved me." Naruto took a deep breath to choke back his tears and continued.

"The person who threatened our village beat her so thoroughly she could barely stand, but still she limped over to me to try and save me. When she could no longer limp, she crawled. The man was prepared to kill her but right before he did he asked her a question. 'Why would someone as weak as you resist? Knowing that you will die?' At that moment she said the motto I had lived my entire life by. "I stand by what I say, because that's my way." And then he impaled his weapon straight through her. Her body went limp and I thought she was dead. In a hateful rage I called on far too much of Kurama's power and it almost consumed me.

"Thankfully, she managed to live, but after that I became an important person in our village. I was sent from mission to mission and was constantly kept on the move. I never got to respond to her feelings and I was never given an opportunity to live my life. I should have just stopped, I should have just lived a little more selfishly!" At this point Naruto had broken down into tears. He had just poked at a wound decades old and found that it had never actually healed.

Naruto looked at the expression on Yang's face in his lap and realized he had just admitted something he shouldn't. "To be honest I am a lot stronger than I let on, but I came to Beacon to have a chance at a life I never could in my village. I was crushed by the burdens of expectations so heavy and I believed it was my responsibility to bear them. Sometimes I wonder what my l-" Naruto was interrupted when Yang sat up and flung her arms around his neck. She pulled his cheek against her chest and held him tight. At any other time Naruto would probably have panicked, blushed, or tried to force himself away from the buxom brawler's bosom. However in that moment there was nothing even remotely sexual about the embrace. Naruto relaxed and let go of tears that should have been shed long before the woman who held him close was even born.

Pyrrha was a mess of emotions at that moment. She had experienced the pain of being alone at the top and knew what that felt like… but the idea that someone's strength and sacrifice would be used to justify separating him from the people that loved him just so he could sacrifice even more was nothing short of cruel. Everything that she went through had almost broken her will, but now it seemed so small and insignificant. Before her was a man who had fought and bled for his home, only for that very same home to rip him from the people he cared about and force him to fight for the village's agenda. In that moment Pyrrha resolved to heal her partner's broken heart if it was the last thing she did.

After a minute of silence save Naruto's own tearful lament he recovered and pulled himself away from Yang. He felt like a fool, but at the same time he felt relieved. It wasn't much, it might not have been anything at all, but part of Naruto felt relieved that he had told someone that. He looked to the group and decided to spring his request on them.

"To be honest I am more powerful than any one of you here. I could be more powerful than the entirety of both of our teams put together. I didn't come here to learn to be a huntsman because I already know how. I came here to learn to live life the way I want and to try to let go of a past that plagues me. If any of the professors here learned what I was capable of I would at best be deployed to active duty and at worst be deemed a subject to study. I'll try to be as honest as I can around you all whenever you ask me something, but I have a lot of secrets that are just going to be off limits. If you ever do anything for me, I am asking you not to tell anyone outside of this group anything about me that isn't public knowledge. If anyone finds out and it gets back to Ozpin I guarantee you he will ask me to do something that will cause me to leave." Naruto implored the group as earnestly as he possibly could.

This honesty felt too sudden and too fast. He had intended to go his entire stay at Beacon revealing as little as possible. Revealing so many of his cards up front to people who were basically strangers was tantamount to throwing himself to their mercy. It was with that thought he realized why Gyūki had pushed for him to do this. Naruto was so powerful that physically he was at no one's mercy. The only way for anyone to try and hurt him was emotionally… and that had been done time and time again. His betrayal by the Kazekage, his exile, and countless other events all exemplified the mantra he had begun to live his life by. "To trust is to risk," he had started to say.

In order to not be used by those that would wield his power belligerently he had begun to view himself as nothing more than a tool that he had to suspect everyone of wanting to use. He had learned to seal himself off from people lest he find out that their entire relationship was manufactured to get him to do something. That had happened more times than Naruto cared to remember.

At this point in time, in a room full of friendly faces who showed nothing but concern, heartbreak, and empathy he we reminded of how he thought as a child. He had fought Neji to show him that there was no such thing as destiny, and they forged a brotherhood strong enough for him to sacrifice his life for Naruto; he had fought Gaara to show him a path to the light and he became the best and most noble Kazekage in the Sand's history; when he decided to give Nagato a chance to fix what he had broken, he gave his life to do so. Finally, when Sasuke and him had fought their final time at the Valley of the End he refused to kill his brother in all but blood. For that he was rewarded with a best friend to last a lifetime.

 _To trust is to risk?_ No… he didn't truly believe that. For the first time in a long while Naruto was reminded that to trust is to hope and believe in a future that was better than the present. He broke through his defunct attitude with a chuckle. Maybe coming to Beacon was the right decision for more reasons than he thought. As everyone answered he became more convinced that line of thinking just might be right.

"Of course, Naruto," Pyrrha said with a soothing smile.

"Wouldn't dream of it!" Yang laughed and put her arm over his shoulder.

"I will never let our commander be taken from us!" Nora exclaimed boldly while brandishing Magnhild threateningly.

"I believe your honesty has earned my trust and my silence," Ren assured him simply.

"You can trust us Naruto!" Ruby shouted with leftover tears in her eyes.

"What's one more secret between us?" Blake said with a small playful grin. A brief second of silence ensued and then in perfect sync everyone's head turned to Weiss.

"He just asked us to lie to professors! Under normal circumstances I would find such behavior deplorable, but in light of recent circumstances I too shall keep my lips pursed as thanks for services rendered." Weiss finished with a small smile across her face. Ruby zipped over to Weiss using her semblance and tackled her into a hug.

"Weiss you are the best! We're all going to be friends and hang out and have sleepovers and talk about cute boys just like you said we would!" Ruby rapid fired in squealing glee. Naruto gave a happy and hearty laugh as he watched Weiss snarl and try to squeeze her way out of the reaper's iron grip.

"All right, I don't wanna do this forever and I don't have a question for Yang right now so let's go for a speed round. Ren, you're up," Naruto said with a grin. Ren appeared to contemplate for a few seconds before he spoke. Naruto noticed an almost unnoticeable devious smirk cross his face.

"You mentioned to Yang you would cook dinner for her if they won the grimm race. We know they didn't, but do you know how to cook?" Ren asked inquisitively. Team RWBY responded with various indignified exclamations and complaints.

"Not exactly. I spent a lot of time on the road and didn't have much need for extensive cooking ability. I basically lived off of salted meats, travel rations, and fruits or berries that I could find. I absolutely love ramen though so I had the daughter of my favorite ramen chef teach me how! It is the only thing I know how to cook!" Naruto declared with pride. To be honest the endeavor had taken two years of off and on training so intense that he considered what Ayame-nee had done to him to be physical abuse to this day. Ren facepalmed and groaned as his hopes were dashed. "Sheesh, didn't know you'd take it so hard. Sorry for not knowing how to cook more stuff." Naruto pouted. Nora giggled and offered an explanation.

"He's just upset because he's always been responsible for cooking me pancakes since forever!" She laughed at her companions affirmative groan. "Oooh speaking of which Ren, you need to make pancakes tomorrow!" Ren knocked his head against the wall repeatedly as he resigned himself to his permanent pancake purgatory.

"I think I'll need to keep this one so I'll save Ren's question for later too. Ruby, you're up!" Ruby disentangled herself from Weiss and bolted over to Naruto.

"You mentioned that you worked in teams of four in your village. If Sasuke and your instructor were on your team who was the fourth person?" Ruby asked animatedly.

"Sakura Haruno was her name. She was actually the first girl I ever had a crush on. I never got anywhere though because she was madly in love with Sasuke. She was the weakest out of both of us on our team and she eventually developed quite the complex about it. When Sasuke left she forced herself to get stronger and studied under a teacher to hone her semblance and aura manipulation. Her semblance let her heal wounds by channeling her aura into people which let her save a lot of lives. She also learned to compress her aura into her fists so that when she punched things she could shatter the ground or punch through trees. Unfortunately I was a knucklehead sometimes and she had a short fuse so I ended up on the receiving ends of those more times than I care to count. I think it was around that time I stopped keeping track of near death experiences." Naruto chuckled at his own joke.

"Her and Sasuke ended up getting together and they still live happily at our village. Sasuke has to travel a lot due to his missions, but they are getting on just fine," Naruto finished fondly. Ruby smiled at the happy ending his friends had found and then skipped back to her bed.

"Alright Blake, your turn." Naruto turned his head to the black haired cat-girl. She waved him off dismissively.

"I've learned more than enough already. More than that, I don't want to owe you a question," she admitted honestly. Naruto gave her a nod and moved on to Weiss. She regarded him proudly and asked her own question.

"You implied that you were so powerful in the stories you told us that your village basically nationalized your life like they would an enterprise. I admit your fight with Cardin was impressive, but it was certainly nothing worth claiming your life over," Weiss finished angrily. This time Naruto was glad to know that she was upset not at him, but for him. Quickly deciding how much to reveal he answered her carefully.

"That technique I use that pushes people away is a lot more universal than I make it seem. You probably noticed that I hold my hand out towards the target of my semblance?" Naruto prompted them and recieved a room full of nods. "Well I can actually make an attracting or repulsing field 360 degrees around my body. Doing that basically leaves me without a blind spot to attack. Also I've been holding the power back of my technique… severely. I'm sure you noticed that my aura didn't even move despite my usage of it." Naruto added at the end. Weiss had noticed and was honestly shocked at the sheer power of his semblance as she had seen it. Knowing that he was substantially holding himself back was honestly frightening. Naruto gave an exhausted sigh of relief.

"With that the interrogation of Naruto Uzumaki has been concluded. The defendant has answered any and all posed questions and has answered all questions satisfactorily. Now go on and get!" He hip bumped Yang off his bed and shrugged off her arm. She looked back to him with faux indignation and was about to say something when he grabbed her by the hand in such a way that was concealed from the rest of her team. The rest of team RWBY filtered out of the room with various well wishings and goodbyes until only Yang remained in the room with Team NNVR. She eyed him with a look of confusion.

"Look Yang… I just wanted to say that I really appreciate what you did. I owe you one," he said simply and fixed her with a grateful beam. She hit him lightly on the head with her free hand, causing him to release her and scoffed.

"I already told you back when you helped Ruby that we were friends and you were stuck with me. I didn't expect any recompense from you so don't sweat it," Yang gave him a happy grin that Naruto returned wholeheartedly. A few moments later Yang's face turned mischievous and her voice took on a honeyed sweetness. "Buuuuuut I would just hate for you to feel like you didn't have the opportunity to properly express your gratitude, so let's call it two favors!" Yang beamed shamelessly at him. Naruto face palmed and then slowly dragged his hand down his face.

"I offered you one favor, you said it was a needless gesture, and now I'm being persuaded into doubling the favors I offered. Explain to me how you figure that?" Naruto asked in disbelief. Yang bent down to whisper warm breath into his ear.

"I gave you two warm and soft favors Foxy. Don't you think you should re-cip-ro-cate." Her sultry voice annunciated each syllable into his ear and Naruto shuddered at the primal effect it had on him. His violent shudder caused Yang to give a loud belly laugh as she straightened herself out and stuck her tongue out at him. "The two favors I want are as follows; that dinner you bet me is back on. You cook the food and I'll provide the venue. Secondly Mr. 'I'm So Powerful', you and I are going to have a good old fashioned no semblance tussle. I'm gonna make sure you realize there is more to a smackdown then waving your hands and saying some fancy words!" She declared accusatorily.

Naruto practically cackled at the suggestion and decided to fight back. "If you're so confident why don't we bet on it? Don't tell me you're scared to lose to little old me?" Naruto jeered at the blonde brawler. A spark lit in Yang's eyes as she realized she had been challenged to staked hand to hand combat. This was like Christmas come early!

"You do not know the pain you have brought upon yourself Whiskers. When I win I want you to follow me around and do whatever I tell you for an entire day!" She declared with a menacing grin. Naruto gave a derisive chuckle.

"That's nothing! When I win I want you to put on an outfit of my choice and let me take pictures of you in it." Naruto smiled as if enjoying his own inside joke. He got up and went to his dresser and started rummaging through it.

"Oooh that's kinky. I didn't think you had it in you, Foxy! So what's it going to be? Maid outfit? Bikini? Fox girl? Maybe you want to see me in my birthday suit?" Yang teased him seductively. Finding what he was looking for Naruto turned around and presented something so hideous that Yang's face paled.

"Nothing like that Yang. This was a gift from a dear friend of mine who was a bit of a training nut. He swore up and down the wall that this was truly the ideal training uniform. Its flexible, its elastic, it breathes well…" Naruto's voice trailed off as Yang spoke the most horrifying and obvious truth.

"It's entirely green." She whispered in pure terror. Then she realized that wasn't exactly true. With the green spandex Naruto held two of the most gaudy orange leg warmers she had ever seen. Naruto held out Rock Lee's gift to him; a full body training suit that all five generations of taijutsu users had worn day in and day out. Lee had once told him that he slept in a separate bed-time set because it even made the act of rest more efficient. The full stakes of of the competition crashing down on her, Yang shivered.

"I'm going to eviscerate you." She solemnly swore to Naruto. It was a sad thing to say but for the sake of her dignity her newly found friend had to die a horrible death in their battle to guarantee that atrocity never found its snug way around her body. She shivered once more as she resolved herself to the complete and utter destruction of Naruto Uzumaki.

* * *

As Yang left the room Pyrrha was left more confused than she had been in her entire life. Although there was sadness in what just happened, the fact remained that Naruto had just opened up to her and her team about things he had clearly never deemed fit to speak to anyone about. That inspired her with the joy of the trust he had put in her as well as the thrill of camaraderie that came from her partner in battles to be trusting her. By all rights she should be overjoyed right now, but she was not.

Something about the way Yang had hung on him, teased him, and forced such egregious physical contact on him bothered Pyrrha on some instinctual level. A dark and ugly emotion swirled around deep in her gut that she had never felt before. It was an emotion so new she couldn't even recognize what it was.

She should have been happy to see her partner making such close friends with another after hearing his harrowing story, but she couldn't say that she entirely was. For a reason unbeknownst to her she flashed back to the locker room right before the Emerald Forest Exam. She had watched him walk away from her and had thought the same exact thing she was thinking right now. It was a fundamental and primitive instinct that baffled her conscious self. As she watched Naruto sprawl out over his bed and give an exhausted sight the same single world flitted through her mind.

 _Mine._


	11. We Who Protect

_**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to RWBY or Naruto. If I did then we wouldn't have the adorable Sarada because I would have had Sakura die in Neji's place for higher impact.**_

 _ **Hey guys! Welcome to chapter 10 of**_ _ **An Old Fox's New Trick**_ _ **. For this chapter the AN is going to be at the end because it is mainly talking about elements of this chapter and the last one I wanted to address. See ya there!**_

* * *

 **Chapter 10**

 **We Who Protect...**

From within a cave tucked into a mountain a mindful observer might have been able to hear the concussive sound of combat. That same person would hear the sound of flesh colliding with such force that its sound would best be described as a resonating roar. Two powerful forces met with a combat so intense one would believe that two of the most powerful hunters of Remnant were waging a war of life or death. In truth, the reality of the situation was far from that.

Two of Gyūki's tails shot out in an attempt to ensnare Naruto's right arm and left leg. In a feat of acrobatic prowess Naruto jumped so that his body could horizontally dodge through them to evade their grasp. Twisting his body to a more upright position he spun in a 180 degree circle to throw spinning round kick into the hachibi's face. From his stationary position Gyūki pulled up his left arm to cross block the blow. Once again the concussive force of the blow pealed like a warning bell to any who might approach them.

Naruto was livid. He had woken up the day after his breakdown expecting to feel like a weight was lifted from his shoulders. The trust and togetherness he felt from the group had felt warm and reminded him of his past when friendship was just that simple. The problems started when he woke up in the morning and felt nothing but a persistent and nagging dread. Suddenly he had armed seven separate people with the only tool that could be used to hurt him… information.

"Naruto-boy… why are you so riled up?" Gyūki asked him aloud with concern. They stood at a similar height with the hachibi being only a foot taller. He had remained completely stationary for the entirety of the fight, as the force he would have exerted moving through the cave risked an accident. Naruto disengaged from his kick and lep backwards only to immediately dash back in. Gyūki shot three tails out at the stampeding shinobi; he managed to avoid the first two but the last clipped his ribcage sending a wave of pain through his body. Naruto was seasoned, though, and continued to press on, firing a punch into the hachibi's face.

Gyūki almost lazily lifted his own pinkish hand to palm the shinobi's incoming fist. Quickly as to not give him time to react he whipped his arm and threw Naruto into the cave wall. It was nowhere near powerful enough to cause any lasting damage, but the mountain still trembled in quakes regardless. "Gaki, this is pathetic," The presently nine-tailed fox insulted his host who was now embedded into the cave wall. "You're going at 8 like a mindless animal. I know what you did was moronic, but you're a moron… you can't be too upset for being yourself." Kurama taunted his host who was busy trying to pry himself out of solid rock in a low, rumbling voice.

"Kurama, what Naruto-boy did wasn't stupid." Gyūki scolded the fox with an aggravated glare. "We want our boy to learn how to form normal relationships again. All this lying and hiding was going to leave him in a hole where he couldn't come clean to his new team even if he wanted to. At least now they know a little about Naruto-boy and know that he has secrets he can't talk about. Makes no sense why you two are in such a tizzy over this," he grumbled the last part.

"I go on a walk and leave you three alone for less than a day and I come back to find you convinced the moron to spill his heart to a roomful of strangers. Now we have seven different children who could expose any number of things that could create a world of annoyance for us. Again, I want to reiterate that team or not, he has known these people for all of two days, 8. What did you expect me to be? Were you thinking I'd be overjoyed that you encouraged the brat to create enough loose ends to form a noose?" Kurama groused at the hachibi. Naruto had managed to work his right arm out of his human shaped hole in the cave wall when Gyūki fired back.

"They're good kids you damned fox. One look into their eyes and you would have known they wouldn't sell our boy out or even dream of betraying him. I regret leaving Naruto-boy alone with you all those years; obviously he has been influenced by your petulant misanthropy. Neither of you should be so out of sorts, considering he did the right thing." The hachibi lectured the kyuubi as Naruto freed another leg from his rocky prison.

"The 'right thing' as you call it is just a glorified way of putting our fresh slate in this world at risk. If any word of this gets to that old codger of a headmaster he is going to start looking into things with a whole new fervor. He learns the kid is holding back his power? He will throw problems at us until he reveals it. He hears the story of things that happened at Konohagakure? He scours the entirety of this world only to find it doesn't exist and then wonders where we really came from. I get you want the kid to be happy but I didn't think you'd be such a complete fool," Kurama escalated in a more frustrated tone. Naruto had wrenched all but his remaining arm and was carefully trying to dislodge it in a way that wouldn't bring the place crashing down.

"We could have waited until they had graduated together and you still wouldn't trust them. You never trust any outsider! You suspected a four year old girl of being an assassin back in the Elemental Nations!"

"She _was_ an assassin!" Kurama snarled back.

"And that's the problem! A lifetime of lessons to doubt instead of trust, to hide away and be careful without taking a chance on people, to fear instead of hope! The boy was hope personified when the war ended, but decades alone with you ruined that!" Gyūki growled threateningly.

"It isn't my fault that the Elemental Nations turned on him! It isn't my fault we're trapped here!" Kurama looked ready to pounce on his eight tailed brother at this point.

"In what worldly way could you believe that?! Naruto-boy sequestered himself away on missions just so you could walk freely about! Instead of interacting with and teaching the new generation that you weren't a threat to them, you let stories of your past define how they viewed you. Then their views of you slowly bled into their view of him over time until eventually they were as afraid of him as they were of you!"

"I _WAS_ A THREAT!" Kurama bellowed while extending his claws. His chakra started to leak out as a menacing red aura engulfed him. "We saved their world from Kaguya and within a measly few decades they were back to fighting amongst themselves to subjugate one another! They were nothing more than animals ready to sacrifice one another to make their lives more comfortable. It took every ounce of restraint I had not to blast them into nonexistence! All my restraint did was give them an easier path to stab Gaki in the back!"

"How are you so naive that you don't see it was that attitude that caused this in the first place?! Your attitude of us versus them kept us from being the teachers of this generation! Tousan would be ashamed at the way you treat his legacy!" Gyūki roared back. His own chakra started to ooze out physically with an ominous bubbling.

"Don't you dare bring Hagoromo into this!" Kurama exploded back as he readied himself for combat. The two were about to set upon each other when Naruto interjected.

"Both of you need to calm down and shut up!" Naruto seethed at his two companions. He leveled both of them with a glare that caused them both to reluctantly recede their chakra. Kurama returned the glare momentarily until he closed his eyes with a solitary harrumph. Naruto turned to the hachibi and started on him.

"Kurama is right, Gyūki. It was stupid of me to do drop all of that on their feet so shortly after knowing them. I just impulsively supplied seven people with weapons to use against me." Kurama smirked victoriously without even bothering to open his eyes. Gyūki was about to argue when Naruto pressed on. "Kurama isn't right about everything though; this won't be a problem," Naruto insisted with certainty.

"How do you figure that, kid? You just admitted to arming them with the information you let slip, so what makes you think they won't?" Kurama scoffed at Naruto's naivety. Noting the obvious derision in the fox's actions, Naruto leveled him with a cold and emotionless look.

"The absolute worst case scenario is the headmaster figures out everything I told them. From there he can try to investigate or not, but either way when he attempted to bring me in I could leave at any time. I don't think you've seen anyone in this world even remotely close to being able to stop me." Kurama grunted his agreement to Naruto's words; the headmaster's complete lack of energy was a quandary to be sure, but there was no possible way he was strong enough to fight three bijuu along with their host. "If that does happen, or even if we begin to suspect it will, we can just leave at our leisure and lay low for twenty or so years. If the headmaster is unreasonably determined to keep looking for us we can just wait it out here until he dies. No one is going to carry on a crusade to look for one kid that may have been more powerful than he let on," Naruto rationalized. Kurama gave another grunt of acceptance.

"Naruto-boy… you can't just lock yourself in a cave for twenty years," Gyūki implored with a sad expression. Naruto dismissed his concern casually.

"It's not like twenty years matters much in the grand scheme of things. For all we know I am immortal, as Kaguya was, but even if I was only semi-immortal like Hagoromo-Jiji he still lived long enough that even he passed decades doing nothing. Who knows, twenty years of hermitage may make it so the next time I try something like this I'm not such a trusting moron." Naruto chastised himself lightly. Gyūki's sorrow only deepened as he tried to reconcile the confident, cheery boy he had once trained at the Falls of Truth with the man before him, who all but rejected the very ideals that he had once lived by.

"I know how deep your scars run Naruto-boy… but Bee wouldn't want to see you give in to despair like this. He was so proud of you and what you accomplished throughout the war. Even more so than the powers you honed, he was proud that your spirit held firm to the teachings of hope from your godfather. The Elemental Nations fell on dark times because we were not there to teach them as Tousan did long before. Insulating yourself from people entirely to avoid betrayal is a venture that sullies the legacies of Bee and Jiraiya. As much as I wish you'd trust as unconditionally as before, I know that you will not. All I ask is that you don't write off the hope that these kids will surprise you. I swear to you that they are good and honest folk, even if you and the stupid fox can't see it." Gyūki finished with a sigh. Naruto had bristled halfway through the lecture at Gyūki bringing up Bee and Ero-Sensei, but ultimately squashed his anger knowing that it was only said because the bijuu cared about him.

"I've got no promises for you Hachi… I'll do what feels right at the time. But right now that small joy I felt when while confessing feels insignificant compared to the mounting dread of the risk you wanted me to take," Naruto admitted with a sad smile. Gyūki buried his eyes in his hands such that his snout protruded from beneath it and sighed again.

"You're wrong to doubt this bunch, but I'll just have to leave it as is for now. You will see I am right in time and I'll save you a lengthy lecture on the error of doubting my wisdom for that moment!" The ox-octopus gave sad, but cheeky smile as he extended a tentacle to Naruto's stomach. Upon making contact with the seal he faded out of existence as his chakra transferred back to Naruto's seal.

"When I'm right, we'll either all be sealed up so no one recognizes us as part of your 'semblance' or whatever shit you call it, or we'll have to wander around for the next century until everyone who remembered us is dead. Let's just hope the stupid squid is right for once." Kurama grumbled as he stretched his limbs out. Naruto chuckled emptily at his partner's jibe and started to walk towards him. "Leave me here for now." Kurama said guessing Naruto's intent. "I felt something… interesting when walking around the school last night. I intend to make my way to Vale to listen in on any news that might confirm my suspicion." Naruto regarded him quizzically for a few moments but ultimately nodded and disappeared instantly.

Alone with his thoughts now that Naruto had used Hiraishin to instantaneously travel back to school, Kurama yawned while affixed with a perplexed facial expression. "Why do I feel that here?" He wondered aloud to himself.

* * *

Naruto appeared with his hand pressed against a wall of the dormitory that he resided in. He glanced around to make sure no one had seen him appear out of nothingness. Looking around the completely barren room he gave a sigh of relief. The room was one of many meant for the teams of Beacon Academy, but this one had been damaged badly some time back and the school hadn't bothered to spend the lien to renovate. Always the opportunist Naruto decided to make an anchor for his Hiraishin here whenever he set out from the school an abnormal distance.

Like all of the dorm rooms it was completely absent of cameras and thus made a perfect place for him to appear out of thin air. With greater paranoia than one might find reasonable Naruto rescinded the jutsu marker for the Hiraishin from the wall just in case Ozpin ever noticed him entering on one of the cameras that would invariably see him entering. He had briefly entertained the thought of just leaving the mark in the room, using Hiraishin to jump to the cave, and then jumping back to the anchor point in the abandoned dorm. But, he found it more likely Ozpin would both notice and care about him coming out of a room he didn't enter than violating a simple 'Do Not Enter' sign.

Content that he had left nothing incriminating in the abandoned space, Naruto opened the door and lazily made his way to his dorm. He pulled out the scroll to find that it was 2:00 PM, only to wince. He had five missed messages from Pyrrha and he had only been gone as many hours! Naruto sighed and hoped that the woman's wrath he felt he was sure to face was more forgiving than that of Sakura's. Even in her old age she had maintained her appearance much like Tsunade-Baachan and she hit just as hard. Naruto shivered as he accepted the hell that was sure to await him.

"Yo!" He shouted with a forced happy grin as he threw open the door to the room of Team Nevermore. "What have you guys been up to?" Naruto shamelessly asked when he came face to face with an aggravated redhead.

"Where have you been?" Pyrrha asked with a voice that crossed irritation and concern. Naruto gave a happy cheer internally as he recognized that she wasn't so angry the situation couldn't be salvaged. Opting for a half-truth he gave an innocent answer.

"Was out training around the forest. I've traveled so much that I just feel more at ease putting my body through its paces in nature." Ren had been eyeing him since he entered the room and gave a simple nod at the explanation. He proceeded to return to the book he had been reading appearing satisfied by the answer.

"You could have invited us along," Pyrrha suggested simply. Naruto just gave her an apologetic smile.

"To be honest I am pretty used to being alone. Dealing with all the energy around Beacon is taking quite a toll on me, so I decided to go out and decompress," Naruto admitted plainly. He didn't dislike his new team or anything, but merely talking to them day in and day out through the course of the week had left him mentally spent. "Speaking of energy, where's Nora?" Naruto asked to segue the conversation away from himself. Ren flipped a page of his book and answered.

"I'm robbing from Peter to feed Paul." He non-answered. Sensing that wasn't quite enough he added, "I also needed some time to myself, thus I allowed Nora to go to lunch on her own." Naruto wasn't quite sure what to make of that until Nora burst through the door, slamming it into the back of his head and knocking him face first to the ground.

"Oh my gosh I can't believe they had pancakes and coffee and syrup! I never knew syrup and coffee went so well together! This day is amazing!" Nora practically yelled in glee as she jumped over Naruto to her bed. From there she started spending her vast energy in the form of acrobatic bed jumps. Naruto peeled his face from the floor and glowered at Ren.

"Paul should have starved," Naruto grumbled pointedly from the floor to which Ren gave a one syllable chuckle. His mirth lasted for less than a moment before Nora was talking animatedly to him at a thousand words a minute. Naruto gave a gloating look and left Ren to reap what he had sowed.

"So Pyr, what have you been up to today?" Naruto kicked off his simple black sneakers he had worn for training. He had been reluctant to give up his open-toed boots, but chalked it up to yet another thing he would have to do to remain anonymous.

"Oh, nothing much. I decided it would be prudent to finish Professor Port's homework early so I would have time to relax for the rest of the day. Did you need any help with it?" Naruto was initially confused because it almost sounded like she wanted him to need help. Then a realization hit him like a bolt of lightning.

 _Ahhhhh, that's it._ Naruto nodded safely at his own thoughts. _She is used to being top dog and really wants to beat me at something. Too bad for her!_ He grinned at the perceived challenge. "Nah, I already finished it when I was out and about, don't sweat it," he waved her off jokingly. Her face shifted into an almost unnoticeable pout. _Ha! Try again next time!_

 _Naruto-boy… if Ma was here she would beat you for being such a knucklehead._ Gyūki commented in stupefaction. You could practically see the question marks floating above Naruto's head. This only seemed to annoy the hachibi further for some reason.

"Oh well, maybe next time?" She asked him with a smile. Naruto was about to tell her there was no chance she would get one over on him before Gyūki almost crushed him with the oppressiveness of his ire.

 _You are going to say the words "That sounds great." Or I will find a way back to Mount Myōboku and tell Ma that you are disrespecting the women here._ Naruto balked at the threat as he imagined the horrors Ma would put him through. He was about to argue about how it was wrong to lie to Ma just to threaten him when the hachibi crushed his mind under another wave of aggravation.

"T-that sounds great," Naruto choked out in fear for his life. As soon as the words left his lips Pyrrha beamed at him. Obviously contented she sat down on her bed and her legs swayed happily over the edge. Naruto took a deep breath of relief when Gyūki's rage receded.

"Do you have anything else planned today?" She asked innocently. Naruto really hadn't planned to do much of anything, but figured saying he intended to do chakra (or 'aura' as they called it here) exercises and sleep for the rest of the day would seem weird. He racked his brain for any ideas and grabbed the first thing to come to mind.

"Yang and I have a bet going on. I figured I would just get it over with and knock her down until she gives up," Naruto shrugged noncommittally. He didn't have any intention of doing that before she asked, but he might as well use the weekend to clear up any backlog he had. As if he had cast a spell her beaming smile dropped.

"In Mistral it is believed one should honor commitments in the order they are made. Perhaps you would give me the honor of your first friendly spar at Beacon?" She asked him with narrow eyes. Naruto silently cursed at himself. During his year of research he had tried to learn the major customs to avoid accidentally offending anyone's traditions or honor. He wasn't exactly one to stand on ceremony himself, but a lifetime of living under the mantra of the Will of Fire had left him with some respect for organizations and their customs.

"Yeah, sure thing. Not like I promised her a time or anything; I'll get to it later. Do you wanna go see if they have any training rings open?" He asked as he rose from his bed. She nodded, her beaming smile returned to her face as she gestured to the door. Naruto wanted to scratch his head in confusion, but settled for complaining internally. _Kami, people change their moods fast in Remnant._

 _I refuse to let you become a hermit. Imagining you with even less social grace is a prospect I don't want to fathom. I think you would lose the ability to speak in anything but grunts._ The hachibi vowed and the two argued mentally all the way to the training arena.

* * *

"Hmmm… interesting," Ren said softly to himself as Nora continued her non-stop talking. He didn't even realize he had spoke until Nora cut in.

"What's interesting?" She asked.

"Mistralians have a custom about promises, but it is to rank them in order of severity. Their culture prioritizes facing the biggest problem first; to do otherwise is admitting yourself afraid to face them." Ren mused.

"Geez! You think Pyrrha would know her own customs! She is so silly." Nora giggled animatedly as she continued to exude boundless energy from her caffeine and sugar high.

"You would think…" Ren trailed off as Nora dove into a tale about a dream she had just had. At that moment Ren couldn't help but agree with Naruto's wisdom; he should have let Paul starve.

* * *

"Any particular ground rules we need to set for this? Not really sure how friendly sparring works to be honest. Where I came from we mainly trained on our own and spars consisted of beating the daylights out of one another," Naruto admitted casually as he stood across Pyrrha. They were standing in a simple circular concrete arena that offered nothing in the way of terrain.

"For now we will just go with standard Naruto class rules," she teased. Naruto stuck out his bottom lip and pouted. They both synced their scrolls with the arena's tech and soon two pictures of themselves were staring at them with two full green bars.

"Everyone else gets ring outs except for me! There is no justice!" He complained in mock outrage. Pyrrha giggled as she set herself into a ready stance. She had been waiting for this spar since the day he asked. She had already had her turn in combat class earlier in the week, but the match had lasted no more than ten seconds. The green mohawked member of team CRDL had practically rolled over as soon as she knocked him off balance and drove him to the ground.

This was the fight her competitive nature had been craving since she met her partner in the Emerald Forest almost a week ago. She was a champion fighter, thus challenges to duels or spars were not out of the ordinary. It was the very way in which he challenged her which had first shocked her. The tone in his voice was far beyond that of the usual bravado or self confidence she had heard over the years. It almost sounded like he was offering to be polite, but not because he thought he was no match.

The way he sounded, looked, carried himself, and every other imaginable trait besides suggested that he viewed his victory as preordained. She was known across the world as the Goddess of Victory, but his entire demeanor suggested that the idea of her triumph in over him was naught but a farce. She shook her head to dispel the very thought. He had said he looked into her record after learning she was a prize fighter. The very notion that he wouldn't take this seriously was ridiculous.

"You know on second thought, this isn't even remotely fair," Naruto began to say. Inside Pyrrha felt her hopes and dreams start to die. She had heard this a billion times over. _She is too famous_ or _she is blessed with talent_ was a common thing that her opponents would claim before a fight. They would immediately follow that up with a request for a handicap. _I suppose that is only normal._ She thought to herself with chagrin. _I suppose I will fight without my-_

"Yeah, you knocking me into the yellow is never going to happen. Why don't we just say if you can connect an attack on me it is your win?" Naruto proposed casually. His tone bore no insult, it was clear his intent was genuine, but in that moment Pyrrha's mouth openly gaped repeatedly like a fish.

"Y-you want to give… me a handicap?" She slowly forced the foreign phrase out of her mouth.

"Well yeah, it took fifteen minutes to walk here! It'd be a freaking waste not to make it interesting." He exclaimed. Pyrrha's eyes narrowed.

"I don't need a handicap," she stated with a voice of sharpened steel.

"Yeah, yeah whatever you say. You can come at me whenever you feel like it," Naruto waved her words off like a parent would a child's fantasy. Pyrrha's eyes were alight with fire. She would show him that fighting against Pyrrha Nikos was no trifling matter.

She quickly hefted Miló into its rifle form and fired off three shots at Naruto. They got within a foot of him before harmlessly clattering to the ground. "Everyone and their mother has a gun here." Naruto jokingly complained. Pyrrha fired ten more shots into him which were all negated as she expected. When she looked to the screen she saw that his aura had not moved a modicum.

"I could do this all day Pyr." Naruto made a show of yawning as if bored. She didn't think the shots would affect his aura, but she wanted to test it herself. Naruto had been made to fight twice more against Cardin in the same week and his aura was never anything but full. She changed her strategy and decided to dash at him, converting Miló to sword form.

She quickly closed the gap between them. 30 feet, 20, 10, but when she was five feet away from him the expected powerful force acted to push her body back through the air. Giving a feral grin as everything went according to plan, she pushed past his semblance. His shock was palpable as she knew it would be. If he had been paying close attention he would have noticed the black aura around her armor as she dashed at him.

In a contest of semblance he had proved the victor in the Emerald Forest, her semblance infused javelin knocked aside by her powerful partner. This time she used the strength of her body, forged by discipline and diligence. As she thrust her sword at her partner she noticed something that made no sense.

He indeed look shocked as she thrust her sword at him, but he didn't look worried or scared. Trying to place the expression in the milliseconds as her thrust neared closer and closer she felt a spark of recognition. Before she could articulate the spark into a thought, Naruto had spun out of the way and landed a round kick in the middle of her back that sent her somersaulting forward. Her face repeatedly connected with concrete as her body continued to then flip over it from the sheer inertia of the blow. After five consecutive flips she came to a rest face first on the floor.

"I gotta say I can see why you won so many competitions. Combining your physical strength with your semblance on your armor to help resist my own is pretty amazing. I mean I wasn't juicing it, but still." Naruto praised her earnestly.

She didn't feel amazing as she picked herself off the ground. When she looked to the screen she saw that the singular kick had knocked off a quarter of her aura! Pyrrha was in a state of bafflement, but turned to face her partner anyways. "You know hand-to-hand," she stated dumbly. Naruto started laughing good naturedly.

"Of course! What kind of huntsman would I be if I didn't know how to throw down the way Kami intended?" Naruto stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. The problem Pyrrha was having right now was that it wasn't. It wasn't obvious to anyone that Naruto was anything more than a pure semblance fighter. Within a week almost the entire class had come to a consensus that if you found a way to beat Naruto's semblance you would beat him. It was such a powerful ability that everyone just assumed he never bothered learning to fight any other way.

"Well come on Pyrrha! I said it would be a shame to end this quickly. Show me what else you got!" Naruto cheered her on supportively. Pyrrha's eyes narrowed as she regained her focus. Regaining her resolve she sunk back into a combat stance. She would find a way to knock him into the yellow if it killed her. He wasn't going to get away with underestimating her.

* * *

"Okay, what the hell is up with Pyrrha?" Yang asked with concerned irritation. Team NNVR and Team RWBY were sitting together in the lunchroom and the spartan in question was not so much eating as mindlessly rolling some peas around her tray. Her eyes were glossed over as she looked utterly lost in thought.

"We were wondering that as well. She has been acting strangely ever since her spar with Naruto." Ren admitted freely. It wasn't his nature to poke around things and he had taken his usual approach of waiting for the problem to resolve itself.

"Narutoooooooo! You sparred and didn't invite me to watch?!" Ruby whined from her position seated across from him. She had wanted to sit next to him but found his sides flanked almost immediately by Yang and Pyrrha. Naruto chuckled as he resisted the urge to reach across the table and tousle her hair.

"I didn't think it was anything you lot would be interested in." Ruby gave him the look of an abandoned puppy. "Come on, you have seen me fight Cardin three times this week. Goodwitch has been relentless with me! Everyone else has only had to go up once!" Naruto's explanation devolved into complaining.

"While it is true that Professor Goodwitch has been unusually keen on getting the two of you to fight that does not change the obvious facts. You and Pyrrha are easily among the top combatants in our class. A fight between you two would surely be more interesting than the drivel that boar Winchester provides." Weiss remarked accusatorily. She had began to have a particularly poor view of Cardin as of late. Naruto had heard rumors that his frequent partner in combat class had taken to bullying others, but had yet to see any hint of it himself.

"You know, I think I know what it is!" Yang proclaimed devilishly. "Naruto just wanted to take our resident redhead through her paces in private. So did you use your semblance to force her to her knees? Or did she take you to the ground herself?" Yang waggled her eyebrows playfully at her fellow blonde. Naruto straightened his hand and chopped her lightly on the top of the head. He probably would have blushed a week ago, but he had quickly become accustomed to Yang and all that being Yang entailed.

"Honestly she proved herself worthy of those titles she won. Within a few seconds of our first spar she had closed the distance on me and found a way around my semblance. It was the first time someone has done that to me." Naruto unreservedly lavished praise on his partner. Weiss scoffed and Naruto gave her a questioning look.

"She is the prodigious youth who took Mistral by storm. She is the most distinguished huntress in training of our generation. You really shouldn't have expected to stand much of a chance even with your semblance," Weiss tutted as she mocked the very idea that someone would stand up to Pyrrha. Seemingly at random Naruto burst into laughter, smacking the table as if he had heard a funny joke. A vein in Weiss' temple pulsed as she regarded him in agitation. "What is so funny, you ape!"

… once." Pyrrha mumbled so quietly only Weiss managed to hear the last word.

"What was that, Pyrrha?" Weiss asked. The ears of everyone at the table perked up as they heard that Pyrrha had actually said something.

"I didn't even hit him once." She croaked like a dying animal and buried her head into the lunch table. There was a collective silence from the group save Naruto who was busy wiping a tear of laughter from his eye.

"WHAT!?" The entirety of team RWBY+Nora shouted as they whipped their heads to the mirthful blonde. Naruto gave one last chuckle before simply stating.

"Told you guys I was strong." As if that explained everything. They started to barrage him with questions all at once. Even if he wanted to listen to them he wouldn't have been able to. His focus was honed in on the realization of the very rumor he had previously heard.

Cardin had grabbed a Faunus by its rabbit ears. Even from a distance Naruto could see that it was obviously against her will as she struggled to escape.

"What are you looking at, Naruto?" Ruby asked him as the group collectively followed his eyes. When they saw The scene unfolding there was universal disgust.

"We should break his legs so he can't bully anymore!" Nora threatened with fire in her eyes.

"Atrocious… I hate people like him." The normally peaceful Pyrrha said spitefully.

"You're not the only one," Blake added with a baleful glare towards the group of bullies. Cardin was the one directly antagonizing the poor girl, but the rest of his team seemed to be getting a laugh out of it too.

Naruto saw two situations play out in his mind simultaneously; on one hand he saw his own persecution at the hands of his village when he was a youth for merely being a jinchūriki. An entire childhood of torment and discrimination for something he had no control over lent itself well to the present situation. The other was the time he saw a group of boys picking on a small girl with the most brilliantly innocent white eyes. The fact that he remembered either scenario did not bode well for all the members of Team CRDL.

"It must be hard to be a f- hey wait Foxy, what are you doing!?" Yang yelped as Naruto jumped onto the bench of the the lunch table before vaulting completely over it and Ruby's head. He landed on the ground with force and volume. The noise was loud enough that Cardin turned his head to see an incoming Naruto looking positively bloodthirsty.

"What do y-" Cardin started before Naruto grabbed both his wrists and jabbed his thumbs sharply into their soft underside. Cardin yelped in pain and released the bunny girl's ears as Naruto inserted himself in between the two.

"What. Were. You. Doing?" Naruto slowly whispered with murder in his eyes. Cardin quailed slightly before regaining some of his previous bluster.

"My friends didn't believe the freak's ears were real. I was just proving a point." Naruto was lucky Kurama had taken to wandering recently. If he had been on his usual perch there was no doubt his eyes would be been crimson at this point.

"You will not bully her anymore. You will back off and take your team with you. If you have any sense of self preservation you will do the exact opposite of starting something with me like I know you want to. Because if you do I can guarantee you I will finish it." Naruto threatened him with such violent intent that a primitive part of Cardin's brain was telling him to flee. Fight or flight had kicked into gear in the teen leader's brain.

Thankfully for him the latter proved to be the case as he brusquely turned away. "Cmon guys… let's leave the freak to the freak lover." He jeered with an ugly look of disgust on his face. The rest of team CRDL rose from their table and scampered off after their leader. Naruto forced himself to take a deep breath and then exhaled as if trying to physically rid himself of his frustration. He turned to the bunny girl and gave a sad attempt at an encouraging smile.

"You all right there?" He asked in a tone so heartbroken it was practically dripping with empathy. The girl nodded her head up and down multiple times in rapid succession. Naruto gave a sigh of relief.

"Ummm… thank you for helping me mister…?" The girl's voice trailed off in a question.

"Naruto is fine. If you could spare me from one of the many nicknames I have been forced to deal with over my life I would be eternally grateful." Naruto hammed up his request with a faux exhausted expression and airy hand movements to try and lighten the mood. He was rewarded moments later with a giggling bunny girl.

"What kind of nicknames?" The girl asked in a small voice so shy Naruto was instantly reminded of Hinata.

"The first was Dobe, it means idiot where I come from." He explained hoping to hear another one of the girl's melodic laughs. He was rewarded thusly which caused him to smile before he continued. "From there I got called kid and brat a lot. Stuck with those three until I got here, where Yang decided to heap upon me 'Whiskers' and 'Foxy'... I think I have heard her say my name no more than three times. Aside from her the orange haired bundle-of-energy that is my teammate appears to have difficulty addressing me by any name that does not refer to my status of leader. So if you could please just add one more person to the list to the category that is 'people who address me by my Kamiforsaken name' I would just really, REALLY appreciate it."

By the time he had finished talking Naruto had taken a seat next to her and buried his head into the the wood of the table. It was almost as if a cloud of exasperation was floating above his head as he gave an over exaggerated sigh into the table. By this point the girl was giggling in a voice that brought some manner of levity to Naruto's turbulent emotions. Suddenly it looked as if a light went on in the rabbit girl's mind. "Are you a faunus too?" She asked hopefully. Naruto pulled himself off the table and gave a quick shake of his head.

"Nope, I'm a human." Her ears drooped slightly. "I don't need to be a faunus to think that what they did was wrong. Honestly I got a similar treatment back where I came from." He admitted. The girl perked up but tilted her head in confusion.

"If you're a human why would they treat you like that?" She asked in a bewildered tone.

"Well my aura was unlocked from a pretty early age. From the moment I could remember I was always with my fox partner Kurama. Village didn't like the fact that I had this fox as a partner and basically equated me to a subhuman worse than any faunus. Parents wouldn't let their kids talk to me, shops sold me rotten food or refused to sell to me at all, orphanage kicked me out, and all kinds of shit like that. Anyways the point is I don't just see someone in trouble and hang them out to dry because it makes my life easier. That just isn't my way!" Naruto declared proudly. The bunny girl fixed him with a complicated smile. On one hand she was happy that there was someone, a human even, that understood her pain. On the other she hated to hear that someone who was nice enough to help her out had gone through such pain. She shook the thoughts from her head as she reminded herself that it seemed like he had clearly moved past it.

"Anyways I'm kind curious why you didn't fight back. I'm a pretty good judge of character and I'm pretty sure you could have mopped the floor with those bozos." Naruto queried in a tone that was simultaneously serious and joking. The rabbit faunus gave a sad sigh. Naruto arched an eyebrow at her.

"Sorry, it's just my team leader has asked me the same question over and over and it gets exhausting answering it when she just tells me I'm wrong immediately after I say it." She admitted sorrowfully. Naruto nodded and gave her the opportunity to decide whether or not she wanted to continue and was rewarded.

"People like him tend to bully faunus because they or the person who raised them lost someone to my kind. It might not be right, but people like that will blame you for their problem just because you share a race with the person who caused their loss. If I retaliate then all he will see is his views that faunus are animals being validated. My hope is that if I just let him vent his frustrations without fighting back then he will eventually see the error of his ways and we'll have one less bigot in the world. It might be silly but I think if I can change one person's mind then maybe I can start a reaction that eventually helps change the minds of everyone." She finished her speech staring at the ground. She had been told repeatedly by her team leader that such an impossible goal wasn't worth sacrificing her happiness for. A hand came down she flinched thinking she was about to get hit on the head for being idealistic, but instead the hand came to rest on her shoulder in a comforting connection between her and her savior.

"It isn't stupid," Naruto said finally. The look on his face was as warm as a radiant sun and as comforting as being wrapped in her favorite blanket. "When I was young I was posed with an impossible problem. A man told me that everyone felt pain and loss when the people close to them suffered at the hands of another. He then asked if it was right to deny those who had lost their loved ones justice? Everyone feels pain and suffering and everyone is right in seeking their own justice for those they lost. He had lost the lives of his parents because of something the people of my home did and could not forgive the people of my home for letting it happen. If he sought justice on my home then I would feel the pain of loss and seek justice from him. The cycle of pain would then continue forever."

"He then asked how I could stop the cycle of pain... To be honest I didn't think it was something I could do at first. To keep this story short let's just say I arrived at the same conclusion you did. I decided that I wanted to help heal the wounds of those that had suffered pain and not repeat the endless cycle he had described. To do that I had to be willing to give up my hate so the cycle of revenge would stop with me. If I never took revenge on someone for causing me pain then that was one less person. So I don't think what you're doing is stupid because I made the same decision long ago," he finished wistfully.

The rabbit faunus melted on the spot. For the first time she had met someone who shared her views and it was positively exhilarating. She was reveling in the afterglow of the situation when her newfound friend rose from his seat.

"Anyways I gotta get back to my teams. You're welcome to come sit with us any time you like uhhh…" Naruto paused for a moment until he rubbed his head sheepishly. "I just realized I never got your name miss-"

"Velvet!" She immediately interjected. "Call me Velvet." she reiterated a bit less anxiously. Naruto gave her a friendly wave as he started to get up.

"Well I'll see ya later Velvet. Pull up a seat with us if you ever feel like it." He was about to head off when Velvet lurched forward and grabbed his wrist with both hands. Naruto lightly tried to remove his wrist from her grasp but she held firm.

"U-u-umm c-can I have your s-scroll information? Justincasetheytrytobullymeagain!" She added so quickly Naruto had no idea what she just said. He reached out and tousled the hair between her ears with a grin. His hand felt pleasant as it rested between her ears.

"Don't sweat it. But uhhhh… you are going to have to take this thing and do whatever you need to do to get it. My team already has my number but I haven't the slightest clue how they did it." Naruto admitted with a sigh as he held out his scroll. Velvet just laughed and took his scroll and quickly inputted her contact information into it. She rung herself once and then hung up the call so she could add him as a contact later.

"Well, Yang is giving me the stink eye and Pyrrha looks pretty pissed for some reason… wish me luck!" He said with a grin and jovially pressed forward with a heart substantially lighter than what he entered with.

 _I did it!_ Velvet cheered to herself and fistpumped in victory. Unfortunately for Naruto that action did not go unnoticed.

* * *

"Jeez Whiskers, took you long enough! I hope the rescued damsel bestowed her favor upon her valiant knight." Yang teased the blonde as he retook his seat next to her.

"Yang I don't know how to break this to you… but that wasn't funny." Naruto deadpanned to the blonde who scoffed indignantly at him.

"I will have you know that I found that pretty _bunny!_ " Yang said with a shit-eating grin. Naruto groaned as if in physical pain.

"That was even worse."

"Oh come on, that was perfectly _punny!_ " Yang followed up without mercy. The rest of the group seemed to agree with Naruto's intense exasperation.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaang." Ruby whined. The two distracted themselves in an intense debate over whether or not puns were ever funny.

"I too am glad to see that the situation was solved without further violence. It is always best to try to resolve disputes peacefully." Pyrrha added. Naruto coughed and averted his eyes from her praising gaze.

"Why did you do it?" Blake question rang out. The lack of words she usually spoke gave her all the more presence when she did.

"She was being bullied…?" Naruto answered hesitantly not really understanding the question.

"But she's a faunus," Blake added as if asking if that changed things. Naruto knew what Blake was and quickly intuited what she was searching for.

"I am here to protect people, faunus or otherwise. I don't see any reason one would think any less of another person for having ears or a tail." Blake gave a small smile. She had heard his opinions on faunus the first day she met him, but she had learned to doubt anything and everyone. "That includes protecting people like Cardin and his team." Blake's face scrunched up slightly.

"He is a bully! You should just break his legs and be done with it." Nora suggested like it was only natural. Naruto looked at her with a serious expression.

"Cardin probably has his reason for hating the faunus. Even if what he did is completely wrong-" Naruto added as he saw Blake's expression sour. "Our job as huntsmen and huntresses is to protect. Sometimes that means protecting the innocent, but often enough that means protecting the misguided. I already don't like that guy, but I'd still risk my life to save him." Naruto finished stoically. Nora looked thoroughly chastised and mumbled an apology. Ren gave Naruto a small smile of gratitude for a lesson well taught.

"My hero! Let this fair lady bestow upon you her favor," Yang orated ostentatiously and wrapped her arms around his neck while pulling herself closer. There were a few whispers from around the cafeteria. Naruto blinked and then wildly looked around. After a second he stage whispered to Ruby.

"Do you see the fair lady she is talking about?" Ruby giggled and Yang undraped herself with a pout and slugged him in the arm. Naruto rubbed his arm and looked crossly at the blonde who was looking away whilst innocently whistling.

"Moving on. Have you heard the rumors of the Forever Fall trip? I hear it is something of a yearly test for the first years," Weiss directed the group conversation to a more productive topic. "I was wondering if your team had already come up with a strategy. If what I have heard from the senior students is to be believed we will be collecting some sort of sap," Naruto nodded knowingly.

"As leader of team NNVR I have already thought long and hard about the optimal way to approach this event." Weiss was shocked that someone other than herself was actually taking this seriously, let alone Naruto!

 _Maybe I misjudged him. He has seemed more mature as of late._ She thought to herself.

"There were two main factors I took into account when formulating my strategy. First I considered what the teachers would like to see to ensure high marks for my entire team, but I also needed to make sure that we used this experience to grow together. I wouldn't want to sacrifice a venture with such great potential after all," A playful grin threatened to break through Naruto's serious facade, but Weiss was too absorbed in his words to pay attention.

"I absolutely agree! The grade is undoubtedly key, but we mustn't squander any opportunity to grow as huntresses," Weiss nodded as she spoke with clear satisfaction. Ren on the other hand sensed a punchline coming. He had carefully observed his leader over the past week and noted that this all felt rather out of character.

"Of course! As such after careful consideration and hours of internal debate I came to my decision." Weiss was leaning forward in clear anticipation of any strategy she could use to better her chances.

"We're gonna wing it," Naruto said simply. Ren smirked as his suspicions proved accurate while Nora and Yang burst into laughter. Pyrrha sighed with a smile whereas Ruby giggled at her fellow leader's antics. Weiss looked like she had frozen solid.

"So you don't have a plan," Blake smirked at the spiky blonde. Naruto gasped in indignation.

"I thought long and hard about what the Professors would be looking for! After intense hours of scrutinous deliberation I decided that the trait of adaptability was one of the highest virtues of being a huntsman. Thus I endeavored to enact the perfect stratagem to impress upon the teachers our mastery of said attribute. As such I eventually stumbled upon the perfect method; through refusing to toil in the muck that is gathering intelligence and predisposed planning we would simply leave all decisions to our future selves. In doing so we would most certainly assure that the cardinal virtue of adaptability would shine through all else." Naruto finished with a studious nod and a poorly concealed smirk.

"Or in other words 'you'll wing it'?" Blake asked amused.

"Indubitably!" Naruto proclaimed in his best impression of Professor Port. Everyone except for Weiss laughed to varying degrees at the NNVR leader. The ice princess in question remained stoically rooted to the spot.

"Ummmm… I think you broke Weiss," Ruby said nervously. Naruto finally joined in on the laughter of everyone else, his worries and fears pushed slightly further back in his mind.

* * *

The students of Beacon were walking through a forest of trees with brilliant red leaves. Naruto had seen many things in his lifetime, but he couldn't help but admire the forest as a work not unlike abstract art. The brilliant color of the leaves was almost surreal.

While enjoying the view Naruto was also trying to dispel the slightly annoyed feeling he had been feeling since the morning. When they met up with team RWBY to head to the bullhead that had taken them to the falls he had been immediately attacked by a red and black midget diving into his chest. The reaper then proceeded to congratulate him while telling him she wished him the best. Naruto had no earthly clue what the girl was talking about until Blake filled him in.

Apparently a rumor had somewhat spread that Yang and him were in a relationship. He blamed Yang's incessant escalation of physical contact to try and get a ride out of him for that. When he asked how Ruby got so far without being corrected by her sister she said that Yang had basically told her to ask him. Naruto started grumbling to himself about how busty blondes had given him nothing but grief over the years as he walked through the forest.

"Yes students, the forest of Forever Fall is indeed beautiful. However, we have brought you here to gather materials for Beacon Academy. The trees here produce a red sap that Professor Peach has need of. Each team will be responsible for gathering four jars of sap, or one per person. We will rendezvous back here at 4 o'clock. Due to the high concentration of grimm in the forest we do advise you stay close to your teams. That is all." Professor Goodwitch gave the terms of the assignment to the gathered group of students. All of the teams started to join together and proceeded to set out to the forest.

"So," Ren started. "Do we have a plan of attack?" He mused jokingly. Naruto laughed and nodded his head.

"Apparently they give extra credit for any students that bring back more than one jar of sap. The problem is that even though these are some pretty lively trees it still takes an hour or so to fill a jar. Honestly it's a pretty tricky test they set up." Naruto admitted with a smile. Ren nodded in tactical thought.

"We could travel as a team and leave a jar unattended to gather sap, but if we do so we risk another team taking it for themselves. If we stick together we risk not spreading out enough to find trees virile enough to tap, but if we separate we risk the grimm." Ren surmised. "Any suggestions?" Ren asked the rest of his team. Naruto's smile didn't waver.

"Apparently if you find a wider tree you can tap it in multiple locations so you can get multiple jars going at once. Probably best to separate into groups of two and each look for a big tree to tap and guard." Naruto suggested. Ren eyed him with a smirk.

"That is quite the thorough plan for one who supposedly refused to wade through the muck of information gathering," Ren lightly teased. Naruto dismissed him with a shake of the head.

"Not my plan to be honest. I mentioned to Velvet we had heard rumors about this trip and she confirmed it was a freshman initiation. She then gave me the rundown I just gave you," Naruto admitted freely. Pyrrha gave a confused frown.

"You haven't even left the room aside from classes for the past two days. Did she tell you that when you rescued her?" Pyrrha asked. Naruto waved his right hand in denial.

"Nah, she told me over scroll messaging," Naruto corrected. "She asked for my scroll info to contact me in case she ever had trouble getting bullied again. She messaged me that night asking if I was okay and we just started talking from there."

"That's… wonderful," Pyrrha said in a complicated tone. She had seen the girl's expression of victory when Naruto had left the table. She didn't know what to make of it at first, but Naruto had just solved the mystery for her. Pyrrha shook her head as if to dispel her growing mood.

 _What is wrong with me?_ Pyrrha thought slightly flustered with herself. She knew Naruto was an affable person and a determined leader. She certainly didn't blame Velvet for what happened to her or for being rescued by Naruto. With practiced efficiency she compartmentalized the confusing emotions away. "Should we split up as partners?" She suggested to which Ren nodded.

"Nora has… a penchant for the sap so to say. I would not want one of you to find that your extra credit sap had disappeared." Ren said vaguely. Nora giggled and whispered so loud it would have been harder to ignore than hear her.

"He means I might eat it," She grabbed two jars from Naruto who had somehow produced them from his tiny hip satchel. Ren was perplexed as each jar was easily as large as the satchel itself but put the thought to rest. He knew what it was like to have secrets and had resolved to trust his leader until a problem arose. Said leader reached into his satchel and grabbed a bizarre kunai by the blade. He then extended it handle first to Ren.

"If you run into any trouble you can't handle just throw this into the ground, or a tree, or anything really." Naruto ordered Ren as he handed over the strange knife. Unlike a normal kunai this one seemed to have something like a sword guard on it. Along the handle Ren also noticed some strange markings winding around the handle.

"I assume you don't want to tell me why?" Ren guessed due to the vague nature of the previous command. Naruto nodded and Ren sighed. "I understand that you have your secrets, but it feels like you are trying to keep more hidden than revealed." Naruto gave a complicated sigh as well.

"Yeah… you are right about that," He said with vacant eyes. Hardly a moment later he refocused. "Anyways don't use that thing if you don't need to, but don't hesitate if you are in over your heads. I know I haven't been very forthcoming but trust me when I say my secrets aren't worth your lives," Naruto assured his entire team. NVR nodded back at him.

"You might have a lot of secrets, but you are still our fearless leader! All of the secrecy and intrigue just makes you feel more like a ninja!" Nora supported excitedly. Naruto almost spluttered but disguised it as a cough. He then wondered if he should change his weaponry so that his origins weren't so obviously guessable.

"Well, let's just meet back where Goodwitch set up assuming everything goes fine. Be safe out there," he instructed and turned away. Pyrrha followed closely behind him and Ren turned to head in a separate direction, but stopped when Nora didn't follow.

"What if you two get into trouble and need help!?" Nora shouted at the retreating pair. Naruto laughed.

"Pyrrha and I are pretty strong, I'm sure we can manage," He said complacently and continued onwards. Nora grumbled reluctantly but took off after Ren who was waiting for her.

* * *

"That's the last one," Naruto said as he finished positioning a jar carefully under the spike he had just tapped a large tree with. He sat down and admired his handiwork. The two partners had found two trees large and lively enough to tap within reasonably close proximity of each other. At the very least it was close enough that they could watch both trees simultaneously as to prevent any theft. The trees were also large enough that they were able to tap three separate locations on them.

Naruto moved over to where Pyrrha was sitting in the clearing and plopped down next to her. He gave a relaxed groan as he stretched out in the grass and laid down. "Now this kind of mission is something I could get used to," Naruto yawned as Pyrrha laughed next to him.

"It is truly a serene place. It is hard to imagine a more relaxing way to spend an afternoon," she exhaled as she too chose to lay down in the grass. They both just watched the clouds in silence for a few minutes. Eventually Pyrrha broke it with a question that had been weighing on her mind.

"Naruto… sometimes you seem exhausted or even irritated when you are around us. I don't think I have ever heard a person sigh so much… do you dislike having us as teammates?" She asked with an apprehensive look on her face as she turned on her side to look at him. Naruto gave one of the aforementioned sighs and slowly shook his head.

"It isn't anything like that. That night I let you all ask me questions I told you far more than I should have. What happened in the past with Hinata was something I thought had long since healed. I couldn't believe I broke down like that afterwards and have been kicking myself ever since. It was just something I thought I had already dealt with and yet that night it just hit me harder than it ever had," Naruto confessed as he continued to gaze into the sky.

"To be honest I recently got a lesson in the error of putting my faith in people. You three haven't done anything wrong, but I'm not sure I'll ever view you as anything more than teammates." He admitted with as much honesty as he could muster. Naruto decided that he would be cruel to be kind in an attempt to spare their feelings in the long term. It wasn't that he found it impossible to imagine a world where he could befriend these kids, but he also saw far more avenues in which he couldn't or shouldn't. It was always possible that the scars of his past were just too deep for him to heal, in which case it was better to let them down now before they had bonded.

It was also just as possible that either from the seven of them or through some other method the secret of his power leaked out to those who would desire to use it. Ozpin's face came to mind immediately when Naruto considered that possibility. In their brief interaction the headmaster felt far too shrewd to dismiss all of the abnormalities that had come with his situation. Even if you ignored the aura test there was still the complete lack of verifiable background that Naruto had given him. It became apparent that was the case when he was brought up for combat practice three times in their first week.

The second time Goodwitch had him fight with the restriction he could not use his semblance, but had the restriction removed on ringout. Naruto had no qualms losing or throwing the match but he knew the damned scoring screen would show how nominal the damage he took from any attack would be. He figured there was some sort of undisplayed numerical measurement of his aura that the professors could see, but students could not. As such he quickly dispatched Cardin by ring out in their second match. It was bad enough Goodwitch and Ozpin seemed to know, but it would be far worse if the students found out. In that scenario the information risked spreading to someone who wasn't quite so coy as the headmaster. If that happened he would just have to up and leave without so much as a goodbye.

There were so many other reasons that things might not pan out, but he was stirred from his thoughts when the spartan adjacent to him spoke. "Then I'll just have to make you," Pyrrha said matter-of-factly. Naruto gave a bitter bark of a laugh and was going to set her straight when she continued on. "You've almost certainly had a harder life than I could begin to imagine. I don't want to insult what you've been forced to suffer through by claiming I understand how you feel… but that doesn't change the fact that you're already my friend."

"When I first came here I hoped that I would be able to escape the reputation I had built up in Mistral. I had been undefeated for four straight years and over that time people began to treat me differently. At first the awe and respect of my peers was something that made me feel like my efforts to obtain success had been worth it. Eventually the respect I had once thrived off of became hollow, the awe had become adoration and I was elevated above the people who had once been my friends and equals. At some point the friends I had either left me to avoid all of the attention that came with associating with me, or changed beyond recognition. Some of them became totally deferent to me while others started to ask me for things granted by my status and fame," Pyrrha took in a breath heavily laden with sorrow before she continued.

"Yet even on the airship over, my towering hopes were quickly being reduced to desolate rubble. Weiss had managed to find me and was giving me a routine I was all too familiar with… in many more words she asked to unite forces as she lavished praise after praise upon me. By the time we started heading to the locker room for initiation I had thought I made a mistake. Then you showed up," She gave him a beaming smile that was overflowing with unspoken gratitude.

"You had no idea who I was, not even the slightest inkling. Even after Weiss went into great detail about my accomplishments you didn't show the slightest change in how you regarded me. Despite hearing I was four time champion of the Mistral Regional Tournament you offered to spar with me. At the time it was a profound gesture that seemed to exemplify that you didn't care about my status. I decided at that moment that if I couldn't make you my partner I would at least seek you out to take you up on your offer, even if I was certain that I would win," Naruto gave a short chuckle at that and Pyrrha joined with him in earnest.

"Obviously we both know that wasn't how our spar resolved itself… anyway, I managed to find you in the Emerald Forest and we became partners. In the following week you would distinguish yourself not only as a powerful combatant, but a strong and empathetic leader who thought about those around him. You were not content to distinguish only yourself, but sought to help team RWBY showcase their talent. Your desire to protect us went beyond a willingness to put yourself into danger, it extended to making sure they knew how to fend for themselves."

"… I know that your past plagues you in ways I could not imagine, but that will not deter me. When you told Nora that as huntsmen we needed to be willing to lay down our lives to protect even those who were misguided I agreed completely. It was actually that very moment that led me to my plan of action if you were ever to come to the conclusion it was too hard, or even impossible to be our friend," Pyrrha conceded with a twinkle in her eyes. Naruto turned from his position looking at the clouds to his side so that they were looking right at each other.

"Not quite sure how those two could possibly relate," Naruto admitted gruffly. Pyrrha gave a small peal of laughter much to Naruto's agitation.

"As a huntress I agreed to look past myself to protect those in need. Yet in these peaceful days at school the person I see who most needs my help is you," Naruto snorted derisively at the implication. He had bested Pyrrha so thoroughly with near zero effort, the implication that he needed her protection was asinine. Pyrrha shook her head as if hearing his thoughts.

"You are stronger than me, that is something I have no qualms admitting… but your past appears to be causing you no end of pain. As your partner, as a huntress, and most importantly as your friend I am taking it upon myself to protect you from the darkness of your past. Because even if I am not yours, you are my friend. As sure as I am that my duty is to save the people of Remnant from the grimm, I am just as sure it is my duty as your friend to save you from your darkness." She smiled at Naruto in a way that he could not describe as anything short of radiant.

"Some people can't be saved you know… the earlier you learn that the better," Naruto spoke sullenly. Pyrrha gave a short nod.

"I know that, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't try. There is not a force on Remnant that would stop me from trying to save a friend," she said firmly as if daring him to argue. Naruto looked into her eyes and prepared himself to firmly reject her, but in her deep emerald pools he saw a reflection. The fire in her eyes was the same that he once remembered in his own. In the measly sum of a week she had resolved to save him from his darkness. Naruto gave a deep and lengthy sigh as he plopped back down on his back.

"I said the same thing once so I can't argue that you shouldn't, but it isn't always as easy as you might hope," Naruto reminisced aloud. If he thought rejecting what she said would have done any good he would have done it without a second's hesitation, but he knew the determination he had seen in her eyes. _One week… sheesh._ Naruto internally grumbled.

"Then I shall have to be prepared for anything that could come my way." Pyrrha said simply as she laid back down beside him. Naruto gave a chuckle that was a cross between rueful and amused.

"Well, you'll have an easier time than I did at least. Huntsman's honor I won't almost stab you through the heart twice and then lop off your arm," Naruto joked snarkily. Pyrrha rolled her eyes at a passing cloud.

"Was that Sasuke?" She asked with equal parts curiosity and sadness.

"Yup. Got caught up in a whole lot of hate and revenge. I decided to put myself in his path to absorb the worst of it. Almost died more times than I could count doing it, honestly," Naruto admitted freely.

"You aren't scaring me off you know," Pyrrha chastised him.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say," Naruto grumbled as he closed his eyes. Within a few minutes of silence he had drifted off to sleep, completely forgetting about watching their sap. Pyrrha sat up and looked down to his sleeping face with a smile.

"Jerk," She whispered softly as she watched over him and their jars. She focused her keen eyesight on a jar to see the sap from the tree slowly dripping into the jar below. It was a funny thing, but at that moment she couldn't help but liken herself to it. Each passing day with Naruto she felt her emptiness being filled. Even as he tried to close himself off, his inner kindness continued to radiate out as if he was a source of warmth for all who came in contact with him. She had watched him help team RWBY, she had seen him save Velvet, and, however unwittingly, he was helping her. Although it wasn't a fast process, slowly but surely she felt the scars of her past receding.

And that healing was a kindness she intended to return.

* * *

 _ **Hey guys, thank you for reading chapter ten of OFNT. I wanted to spend some time here to say that I know some people were dissatisfied with the previous chapter and I knew that would happen. This plot has been more or less decided before I even pressed the first key and I always intended for Naruto to regret revealing as much as he did in chapter 9. That being said it was not a mistake in my eyes for me to write him doing so, nor did I write this chapter as a means to get the story back on track. It was always my intent to write it this way.**_

 _ **This is going to be a story about pain and healing. Some people want it to be more focused on the sad elements and others the happy, but you are always going to get a mix of both from me. Some are going to be very uplifting, some are going to be very depressing. Not every chapter will arc back to happiness like the most recent ones.**_

 _ **Responding to a couple other things briefly I have seen really positive responses from readers, friends, and my beta Alleria over Naruto playing mouse to the cat that is currently just Ozpin, but will eventually extend more so to Ironwood and Glynda. As much as I want to write more of that this is a character driven story. I will most certainly add more in the future, but I can only add as much as is reasonable.**_

 _ **Finally to the people who I KNOW are going to write this off as a Pyrrha x Naruto ship I am telling you again that is not necessarily the case. Pyrrha is his partner and thus gets the most natural time with him and so we tackle their relationship first. From here on we are going to see a lot more of RWBY.**_

 _ **That's all from me. My beta and I went back and forth on a few elements of this chapter. I was debating on ending it on a moment with Yang that is coming up next chapter, but found it to be lengthy as is. With that being said I want to thank everyone for reading chapter 10 of OFNT. See you next time!**_


	12. Protect Indiscriminately

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or RWBY. If I did then Velvet x Cardin would be cannon. I like to believe that Cardin grew up somewhere in vol 3 and 4 off screen and became a protector of the everyman so much so that the two reconciled.**_

 _ **Hello friends and compatriots! Welcome to chapter 11 of**_ _ **An Old Fox's New Trick**_ _ **. This chapter was an absolute pain to write because of its transitional nature, so I know it is not the best. We left off in Forever Fall and I had quite a bit I wanted to get done while we were there. Let it be known that compared to last chapter I know this one might accomplish a bit less, but it needed to get done so deal.**_

 _ **Other than that I wanted to say thank you for over 200 follows in ten days since release. We've averaged about 22 follows a day and as far as I can tell that's pretty decent for a new story from a fresh account on this site. I'm grateful to everyone who has expressed interest. Now for a quick Q &A with much shorter answers than normal…**_

 _ **Q: Why does Naruto not seem more sad?**_

 _ **A: Naruto is jaded and unknowingly depressed. Not all sadness is realized by the one feeling it and I find it more enjoyable to watch the RWBY cast try and peel that jade off piece by piece. Also the majority of the RWBY cast is incredibly upbeat, which doesn't lend itself well to intense brooding.**_

 _ **Q: Harem?**_

 _ **A: No.**_

 _ **Q: Why does Naruto feel young?**_

 _ **A: He is emotionally young. You'll get more and more of his backstory as the story continues, but the TLDR summary of his character is "skilled in many proficiencies, emotionally stunted". I'm confident that you'll be able to believe that he would act as he does now by the time we reach the end of the story… If I quit before that you'll have to take me at my word.**_

 _ **With that being said welcome once again to chapter 11 of OFNT. See you guys next time!**_

* * *

 **Chapter 11**

 **... Protect Indiscriminately**

Naruto opened his eyes and found himself sitting in a cave. He knew he had been meditating... trying to find more efficient ways to gather nature chakra for… how long had it been? The question idly flitted through his mind as if nothing but a momentary passerby before he resumed his task. A few minutes later he felt a familiar presence approaching and smiled.

"Came down to chill with my homie Naruto. Find him sitting so still even moss could grow, atop his stupid head like a green afro! Yeah!" An old man's voice sounded out in rap. Naruto opened his eyes and saw a pair of black goggles staring at him.

"I'm pretty sure meditative thought on the nature of chakra is not an idiot thing," Naruto gave a quiet laugh. The old man's face scowled at him.

"I know that you've been sitting here day by day, just letting your whole life just pass you away. You used to be so happy and joke around like a clown, but lately you can't smile or even manage to frown. Let's get you up and follow ol' Bee for a night on the town." Naruto's past mentor continued to wax lyrical raps. Naruto chuckled at his old friend and teacher's familiar rap-speech.

Bee had aged fairly well, but his age was still apparent. His once white blonde hair was now entirely white. He kept his hairstyle the exact same as he always had, but his once goatee had now become a short lion's mane. His face had developed the inevitable wrinkles that stood as a testament to the many decades he had weathered. He stood in a black training outfit that Naruto had learned had once belonged to the Fourth Raikage before he had passed away. The sleeveless outfit was worn as a memento to the man who had lived and guided the Cloud Village far past even the younger Fifth Mizukage. The Fifth Raikage had officially taken office long ago, but A cared too much for his village to stop 'assisting' with matters of state. Naruto had once jokingly wondered if A would be the man to live out his immortality with him through sheer force of will and unrelenting stubbornness. Sadly that wasn't meant to be.

"You took me out last time you dropped by Bee. Give a man some time to rest." Naruto complained at his fellow jinchūriki. A large and present voice permeated his mind.

 _That was three months ago. Have you even moved since then you idiot?_ Gyūki scolded his ageless pupil. Naruto blinked slowly and then rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Well… I mean… You know ever since I discovered how to substitute nature chakra for food I've occasionally lost track of eating once or twice… time really flies when you're delving into nature!" Naruto joked feebly. Gyūki growled through their mental connection.

 _I used to think you were going to be as lively as Bee in old age, but you've decided to take upon yourself an insufferable hermitage. Why haven't you been taking care of your host you stupid fox!_ The hachibi accused the nine tailed fox who was lounging on a bundle of blankets deeper into the cave. The kyuubi rolled his eyes at the familiar lecture.

"The brat said it was easier to focus on training his sage jutsu out here and I didn't feel the need to complain about it. Besides, the new generation doesn't take well to seeing me walking about. Only been a decade since the kid made that fancy new seal that lets me get out and stretch my legs. Let me enjoy it without the constant nagging you squid." Kurama grumbled aloud.

 _The new generation is only like this because they have seen barely hide or hair of you in the past twenty years. There are a lot more horror stories about you than heroic ballads. If you don't start changing how they feel now it is only going to get worse. The old generation is dying out, they won't be here to protect you from the new one forever._ Gyūki continued to lecture Kurama. The fox growled as he started to get agitated.

"The new generation is too pathetic to do anything you dumbass squid. They could send their entire army at me alone and still be wiped out before lunch. I think old age has made you senile if you're dumb enough to think they pose any threat." Kurama jeered at his long time brother.

 _There is more than one way to skin a fox. The sooner you learn that the better._ The hachibi warned ominously. Kurama just scoffed and rolled his eyes before closing them in an attempt to sleep. Naruto chuckled at the all too familiar argument between the two and turned back to Bee.

"I'm not gonna let you sit alone in this cave, your sensei is here to to take you out to a rave. You're a stuffy old hermit and so your right you have waived, to say no, so let's go, get your talking skills saved!" Bee finished with an outstretched hand offering to pick him up.

"What in Kami's name is a rave?" Naruto asked. Bee just gave a shrug.

"Something the new kids came up with. Apparently it is some sort of party." Bee answered out of rap. Naruto looked at him for a few seconds with a knowing expression until Bee realized what had just happened and started in a panic. "The new generation is wild and free, so they figured out a new way to party. So let's go and then show them how it's done, your old teach is here to make you get some fun!" Naruto full on laughed as he watched his old friend throw together a slipshod rap. Slowly but surely the mirth drained from his face. Bee thrust his hand out a little further to try and get him to take it, but Naruto just pushed it away.

"I think I'll just stay here." Naruto said softly.

* * *

"Guess whooo-oo?" A saccharine voice roused Naruto from the comfortable abyss of sleep he had been enjoying. When he opened his eyes he saw nothing but blackness. Despite being awoken from his nap he instantly snapped to awareness to assess any possible threats, but relaxed within a second when he realized what was happening.

"Not sure," he grunted in annoyance. "I'm positive that you're no fair lady whoever you are." Naruto grinned and was promptly punished with one of the hands that was previously covering his eyes being balled into a fist. In a quick moment he was bopped rather hard on the forehead by the hand-turned-weapon and winced in slight pain. "Yowch, what was that for?" He complained.

Through his unobstructed eye he could see Yang's pouting face looking down at him. "You know, for being so blessed as to be treated to a fair maiden's lap pillow you are awfully ungrateful." Yang complained at him. Naruto took notice to the fact that his head was indeed resting on her kneeling legs before rolling his eyes. "If you keep this up Whiskers I may have to find a new man to shower with my affection. You're making me feel terribly unappreciated."

"I'm confused… are you trying to convince me to stop or cont- OW!" Naruto shouted as Yang brought down her fist on his forehead harder than she had last time.

"Ooooh bad end Foxy, please try again!" She teased.

"Yeah I'd say, getting repeatedly hit by an abusi- STOP THAT!" Naruto growled as he was punished even harder than last time.

"I don't think you're learning your lesson here Foxy. Do you want me to play rough?" She grinned bestially at him.

"You're so great, pretty, and I am just so unbelievably lucky that you have taken pity and decided to comfort my poor soul," Naruto drolled with overwhelming sarcasm. The buxom blonde beamed playfully down on him and stroked her hand through his hair as reward.

"That's better. You weren't the most sincere, but I think you are just mean to the girls you like because you can't express yourself," She continued to tease her fellow blonde. Naruto just scoffed in return.

"Whatever lets you sleep at night," he grumbled. Yang picked up her hand that was stroking his hair and slowly balled it back into a fist. "Errr- I meant… look, just don't hit me." Naruto asked honestly with a tinge of begging. A lifetime of being physically assaulted by Baachan and Sakura had left him slightly submissive to the physical manifestation of a woman's ire.

"What do you say to your fair lady who you have so rudely wronged?" Yang asked in a voice crossed with pretentiousness and implied threat.

"You're so great, pretty, and I'm so lucky," Naruto repeated robotically to which Yang beamed. Naruto exhaled in exasperation and looked to his right. "Where'd Pyrrha go? I figured she'd have alerted me to you attempting any pranks like this," Naruto asked in an unconcerned tone. She wasn't as powerful as him, but she would be more than enough for any grimm in the forest.

"Apparently your sap finally finished up so she is over there gathering it. Ruby had us all split up and I wandered across you guys. She asked me to babysit since she didn't want to wake you. Actually, correction, she is heading over here right now. Is it just me or does she look a little pissy?" Yang asked. Naruto noticed the redhead was quickly moving towards them with a large sack in tow. Having recently been subjected to a certain buxom blonde's ire he decided to preemptively strike.

"Hey Pyrrha! Sorry about falling asleep and making you do all the work, you should have woken me!" Naruto called out to Pyrrha as she continued to close the distance. He figured it was reasonable she was agitated that she had to do all the heavy lifting while he just laid down and napped. He honestly hadn't meant to, but the mental fatigue overwhelmed him when he was relaxed. Pyrrha was still a good thirty feet out when Naruto noticed the sound of a projectile flying through the air. By the time he noticed it was too late for him to do anything as the flying object collided with Yang's back, and apparently far worse…

Her hair.

"What. The. Hell…?" Yang seethed like a volcano about to erupt. She whipped her head in the direction the projectile had come from which exposed her hair to Naruto. With a quick look he surmised what had happened.

"They threw a container of tree sap at your hair," Naruto growled in aggravation. He sensed a malignant energy and held out his hand towards Pyrrha in a clear sign to stop. Pyrrha obediently froze in place, but unsheathed Miló and switched it to rifle form in preparation for an altercation.

Naruto noticed that nearby grass patches were starting to smolder and instantly looked to Yang. Even outside of sage mode he could sense that her power was quickly rising, and in accordance small patches of grass around her were now catching fire. He quickly gathered nature chakra and looked at Yang with his heightened senses. _No way…_ Naruto thought disbelievingly. Before he could follow that thought any further he sensed the dark energy moving closer to the two of them.

A swarm of black wasp like creatures quickly converged on their position. Within seconds they had formed a cloud surrounding both Yang and Naruto. With a lightning quick analysis of the situation Naruto knew what he had to do.

"Pyrrha, anchor down!" Naruto barked a command without turning to face her. The spartan instantly understood his intention and quickly switched her weapon back into sword form, then quickly dug both Miló and Akoúo̱ deep into the ground. She immediately went prone and grabbed onto both of them as anchors to tether herself to the ground. Naruto grabbed Yang by the shoulders and spun her around to face him. When he looked into her eyes she found her usual lilacs were ablaze in crimson. "Hold on as tight as you can," he ordered with commanding presence. Yang's eyes flickered before going back to their normal color.

Naruto thrust out his arms in opposite directions and Yang grabbed on tightly to his midsection. She buried herself in Naruto's chest when she heard him yell something.

"SHINRA TENSEI!" Naruto roared. The instant he activated his jutsu he knew something was wrong. He felt the ground below him start to give way and he felt power he had not used in some time. His thoughts racing as fast as they could he came to a sickening realization.

He hadn't deactivated sage mode. The incredible power boost meant that the usual restraint he exercised was nowhere near enough to contain his power. He saw Yang's grip quickly slip, but could not deactivate the power until the wasps were completely neutralized. He made a snap decision in an instant and acted on it.

 _SHU!_ Naruto shouted internally. Conveying his intent to the tanuki in a burst of emotion.

 _You got it Naru!_ The ichibi roared in enthusiastic glee while simultaneously fulfilling his host's request.

* * *

Yang knew she was losing her hold, and fast. Less than a second had passed since Naruto had activated his semblance and her body was already floating completely parallel to the ground. The only thing keeping her from flying off was her quickly failing grip on the NNVR leader. The immense pressure forcing her away barely left her the ability to squint, but looking at the ground she saw that even it was giving way to the immense force as it slowly cratered around Naruto and her.

Another second later the crater continued to deepen and she knew she couldn't last any longer. Despite her desperate efforts she quickly lost her hold on Naruto's back. In the instant she felt his semblance take full effect on her she wasn't sure if she'd be able to survive the impact of whatever Naruto's overwhelming semblance blew her into. Despite that she was oddly at peace. _He'll be able to protect Ruby when I'm gone, won't he?_ She thought to herself as she was flung backwards. She closed her eyes and accepted fate and quickly found herself crashing into something… but it was much too soft to be the ground.

A few seconds later the immense pressure from Naruto's semblance receded and Yang couldn't help but let her mental process stop completely for a moment. _I'm not dead?_ She thought in confusion. She opened her eyes to see Naruto's relieved expression, but something about him was completely different. _What is that?_ Yang questioned to herself.

She had seen Naruto's purple ringed eyes a few times in class when he had fought Cardin. Whenever he activated his power his eyes would change into that ominous purple until he had won the fight. She looked into those same purple eyes directly in front of her at that moment, but the outer section of his eyes and surrounding skin was pitch black. He blinked once and the purple eyes had disappeared completely, leaving his eyes completely black with only a tiny yellow dot for his irises. After the initial shock wore off she noticed she was being held in the air just above the three foot deep crater Naruto had dug himself. She couldn't quite register what about that struck her as so bizarre until she realized both of Naruto's hands were by his sides.

The entire swarm of rapier wasps was completely eradicated by one use of his semblance. Yang knew they were a type of grimm from her studies back in Signal Academy, but she had never seen them swarm together like that. She was better than anyone at taking down an enemy, she was even pretty good at fighting multiple people at once, but she knew she wouldn't have been able to handle such a staggering amount of tiny enemies. Naruto looked at her with a face full of concern. She blinked a few times and Naruto seemed to take that as a sign she was at least somewhat ok.

The blonde shinobi heaved a sigh of relief and Yang was set down. It wasn't until she saw it receding from its grip around her body that she noticed it; a sandy tail with blue markings had unwrapped itself from her waist and was slowly pulling back into Naruto. It continued to recede until it eventually disappeared entirely. Naruto jumped out of the hole he had previously occupied up towards Yang.

"You okay?" He asked shortly. Yang couldn't find any words to use so she simply nodded. The tension that seemed to be holding him up left his body, his shoulders sagged and his neck went slack as he stared to the ground. "I'm sorry." He murmured just loud enough for Yang to hear. The complete self-loathing Yang heard in his tone snapped her out of her funk.

"Don't sweat it Naruto. I know all about letting your semblance get away from you, believe me," Yang assured him with a grin. Naruto gave a poor excuse for a chuckle and then realized something he had forgotten.

"You okay Pyrrha!?" He shouted as he spun around towards where she had rooted herself to the ground. A single hand emerged from the barricade of Miló and Akoúo̱ and gave a thumbs up. Naruto took in a deep breath and then exhaled in relief. Pyrrha gingerly rose and sheathed her sword and shield with a slow and deliberate action. She walked over to Naruto and Yang with a small grimace on her lips.

"I'm okay!" She assured a growingly concerned Naruto. "That was just much stronger than I was originally anticipating. I didn't have as good of a grip on my weapons as I should have." She said in such a way it was clearly obvious she was trying to absorb some of the blame Naruto was heaping upon himself. Yang decided to step in.

"Stop beating yourself up Whiskers! We all made it through this more or less in one piece, I didn't get killed by rapier wasps, and I got to see a cool new power of yours! This is a win!" Naruto groaned as she said the last bit.

"Sure as hell feels like we define win differently," he complained at he tried to rub the mounting fatigue away from his face. "Seriously though, both of you don't tell anyone about that. That means the strength of my semblance or the other thing. Not even our teams," He specified firmly. Yang just rolled her eyes.

"Your secret is safe with me Foxy. After seeing how kickass your normal semblance is I kinda get why you've been paranoid about the headmaster. I'm betting those aren't the only things in your bag of tricks either?" Yang half-stated half-asked. Naruto just gave a short grunt and reluctant nod of the head. "Yeah, we'll just keep that under wraps," Yang assured with a poorly concealed giggle. Before they could proceed with anything else a group of screams could be heard from the direction the sap was originally thrown.

Three boys came running out of the tree line in a panicked frenzy. It didn't take long for Yang to make out their silhouettes as three of the four members of team CRDL. As they were fleeing past them Naruto kicked the one with a mohawk and swept his legs out from under him. The remaining brunette and grey haired members he grabbed by the scruff of their shirt with his left and right hand respectively.

"Where is Cardin?" Naruto asked with a no-nonsense attitude. Yang figured these knuckleheads were the ones responsible for her current bad hair day, so at that moment she wanted nothing more than to flagellate them. The way Naruto spoke made Yang feel like there was a much more important matter going on that she somehow hadn't noticed. She quickly tried to run through anything that stuck out about the situation and was coming up blank. Right as the brunette, Dove, started to speak she noticed something didn't add up.

 _They were running towards us_.

"W-when you used your semblance all of us got blown back. S-some of the sap we had got onto Cardin and a whole mob of ursai showed up. We all started to book it." Dove stuttered out.

"Y-yeah. Cardin himself said to run. I'm sure he's hot on our h-" Sky was interrupted when Naruto dropped Dove and slapped him across the face. A giant red handprint was left on the shocked Sky's left cheek. Yang turned her gaze in shock from the two CRDL members to Naruto, she expected to see him enraged. The look on his face was much more terrifying than the rage she expected, and was not an expression she had ever seen him make.

Pure disgust was plastered on every inch of the spiky blonde's profile. Yang had seen him agitated before, but the sheer revulsion with which he regarded Sky was enough to make her breath catch in her throat.

"You know that isn't true," Naruto started to speak with slow, deliberate purpose. "Your whole group would had to have been near the tree line when you threw that sap. Even if I knocked you all back Cardin would have shown up by now. The other two may be too stupid to realize what that means, but not you." Naruto said the last three words with odious scorn. The mohawked Russel had gotten off the ground and stood beside Dove, the horror of realization had started to quickly creep across their faces.

"Remember this moment when you left your leader for dead, Sky Lark. In every moment you live and breathe from this point on I want you to remember that you were a coward who was willing to sacrifice another just so you could live. Maybe if this haunts you just a fraction of how much it should you can change into someone who would never leave another behind; maybe you can change into a Huntsman. Anyone can be misguided and make mistakes, but one who abandons their comrades is nothing but scum." Naruto flung the boy into his two other team members who managed to catch and steady him.

"You three run and get Goodwitch. Let her know there may be a possible man down in need of medical attention." He quickly delivered his orders to the other team with practiced efficiency. Yang couldn't help but wonder if Naruto had been a team leader in his village before he came to Beacon. She had faith Ruby was going to grow into being a fine leader, but Naruto already felt like a seasoned commander. She was quickly torn from her pondering when Naruto turned to her. "Yang and Pyrrha you're with me. Our primary objective is to find and rescue Cardin. I'm taking point here Yang, you need to follow any command I give you. Is that understood?" Yang nodded almost reflexively.

"Catch up as fast as you can, I'm going on ahead to make sure Cardin is ok." Naruto instructed as he simultaneously turned with a hand on his stomach. The sand tanuki appeared on his shoulder and the ground around him quickly turned to sand. A moment later he was speeding through the air on a disc of sand at breakneck speeds. Yang blinked in surprise, but before she could even come up with a question to ask Pyrrha was bolting after him. Not one to be left behind Yang took off after her as fast as her legs would allow.

It only took a minute of sprinting into the forest before they came across Cardin leaned up against a tree, the roar of ursai sounding not far in the distance. "Are you alright?" Pyrrha asked Cardin. He gave a pained nod.

"I'm fine, but I can't walk," Cardin admitted with a grimace. "Your leader showed up as one of the ursa majors was about to finish me off. He knocked it back and led them all away from here. He told me to tell you guys to get me out of here while he dealt with them," Pyrrha frowned at the revelation whereas Yang just felt utterly flabbergasted.

"You said 'one of the ursa majors'?" Yang asked slowly in clear disbelief.

"Yeah, that sap attracted a horde of ursa! I lost count at six majors each with a pack of about five normal ursai. There could be more, I don't know..." Cardin admitted with a shiver, the terror of the situation he had found himself in not yet passing him. Yang and Pyrrha shared a look that held an entire conversation; Pyrrha was on Naruto's team and thus had the obligation to follow her leader, Yang had agreed to do the same before they even set out.

But at that moment both of them knew that the order they had been given could not be followed.

"I can't carry him, but I'm confident I should be able to protect him from any strays that wander over here. You go help cover Naruto's retreat!" Pyrrha shouted. Yang didn't linger for another moment and instantly took off towards the roaring pack of ursai. She bounded through the forest as fast as she could while trying to avoid running into one, or tripping over its roots. Less than thirty seconds after she started running towards the sounds of combat she entered a small clearing. What she saw caused Yang's heart to skip a beat.

Eight ursa corpses were strewn across the ground as they had started to disappear. At the center of the small, circular clearing Naruto was engaged in ferocious combat with the remaining ursai, but this was not the Naruto Yang had seen fight in class. Before her was a whirling dervish of death who combined freeform acrobatics, knife skills, and his semblance to decimate his foes.

Three ursa minor set upon him simultaneously from three separate directions. Before Yang's shellshocked mind could register the need to help him he had activated his semblance, flinging one ursa in front of the path of another. He turned on the remaining ursa that was still charging and sidestepped it, using its own momentum to easily slit its throat with his kunai. Yang had just had front row seats to a much more powerful show of strength with his semblance, but the way he used it now shocked her even more.

She had always sense Naruto was powerful, but what she saw before her now was different. As she watched him dash forward and execute the two ursai he had previously stalled she saw something far greater than power. Yang saw refined, controlled, and well practiced battle techniques that far exceeded natural talent. He did not use his semblance to overpower his enemies, but merely used small applications here and there to ultimately change the landscape of the battle. Naruto jumped over the swiping paw of an attacking major and with a twist of his body and flick of his wrist he nestled his knife into the crook of its unarmored chest. Contrary to what she and the rest of her team had theorized it did not seem like Naruto was a pure semblance fighter. As she watched him move from ursa to ursa with pristine control of his weapon she couldn't help but wonder if he even needed his semblance.

Yang had taken to Naruto quicker than she had expected to. It was nice to have a guy friend that didn't burst into a sputtering mess whenever she began to tease him or engage in the occasional physical contact. More than that, she knew it was because she sensed a combatant she felt could challenge her. Yang wasn't sure whether or not she could beat Pyrrha, but she was sure that if she did lose it would be because she had been outmaneuvered or lost the strategic battle. When it came to raw power she knew she had Pyrrha beat. Naruto himself was an enigma, but even with the great power he had shown with his semblance in combat class she had always sensed there was more.

She didn't have any fancy ability to sense other people's aura or anything like that, but the raw animal instinct she had cultivated over the years caused her hair to stand on end whenever he became serious. Even if Yang consciously viewed him as an ally that didn't stop her primal drive from screaming 'danger!' at her whenever his eyes became ringed and purple. Previously she had thought it was just because he was holding back the power of his semblance, and today had shown he clearly was… but watching his blade cull the ranks of the ursai before her made her realize how much more there was to the NNVR captain than she had ever was so dazed by the overwhelming combat prowess being displayed before her she didn't notice that an ursa was upon her until its paw was already swiping through the air towards her stomach. Instinctively seeking to minimize damage she brought her arms up to block the blow. She knew it would most likely tear up her arm, but it was obviously better than the alternative.

* * *

Naruto dodged the jaws of an ursa and then used his semblance to force away a charging major. He looked to see that an ursa had peeled off of him and was obviously interested in something else. His mind immediately went to the injured Cardin and he spun to see Yang looking completely unfocused.

 _Shit!_ He swore internally. He had just used Tendō and couldn't activate it again for another few seconds, but his kunai by itself didn't have the power to fell one of these bears if thrown. _I swear I used to be luckier than this!_ Naruto complained as he drew another kunai from his satchel. He threw it and watched it quickly shoot through the air. He watched as the ursa raised its paw to lacerate Yang's torso and saw Yang lift up her arms in defense. In an instant the location he had once occupied was left vacant, as if he had disappeared.

* * *

Yang had just had her expectations betrayed for the second time that day. The first time was just minutes ago when she was worried Naruto's semblance might kill her, the second was happening right now. She had been bracing herself for the pain of an ursa's blow, but instead saw a familiar red and black cape billowing in front of her face.

"I'm guessing you decided to ignore my orders because you thought I'd need help, so I can't be too mad at you. I gotta say though… I didn't think when you called me a knight you'd take it so far as to play my damsel in distress," Naruto teased as he grappled with the arm of an ursa. It took Yang's brain a second to catch up and realize that the ursa he was restraining was the one she had been about to be mauled by.

"Seriously though, little help here?" Naruto requested pointedly. Yang broke through her mental haze at those words and cocked her shotgun gauntlet. She wound up a telephone punch and Naruto followed the queue to move out of the way. In a blast of dust she punched forward into the ursa's face. The blow sent the beast reeling on its hind legs giving Naruto easy access to its exposed throat. As knife rended flesh Yang pulled herself back and reset into a fighting position. After finishing off the ursa, Naruto reset his stance next to his fellow blonde as he bent his knees and lowered his center of mass.

"You know, I can handle this if it's too much for you. Not everyone can handle the heat," Naruto joked, having a good idea of what the reaction would be. Yang broke out into a grin.

"Oh, you haven't seen heat yet Foxy!" She shouted as she rushed into the remaining ursa. Naruto grinned back and followed her into the fray.

* * *

Pyrrha was beside herself with worry. She had been standing guard next to Cardin for what felt like no real purpose. Not a single grimm had made it through to them and they remained thoroughly unmolested. "Do you think they're okay?" Cardin's voice broke the silence, the sound of combat having just died out.

"I am guessing you were the one who decided to throw sap at Yang, most likely with full knowledge it would attract the grim," Pyrrha rebuked her protectee. "Are you truly concerned whether or not they are safe?" Cardin was shamefaced and looked away from her piercing gaze, but responded anyways.

"I didn't want this to happen, okay? I got the guys together and we rounded up some sap and rapier wasps. We just meant to get the blonde girl doused in the sap and then sic the wasps on her. They can't kill, but their stings hurt like a bitch," Cardin swore. Pyrrha's usual patience was well past spent worrying about her leader and friend.

"First off I want to say that bullying other students is absolutely atrocious. We are comrades in a fight against the grimm, grow up!" Pyrrha seethed from above the sitting Cardin. "Secondly, what has Yang even done to you?! I can not even recall a time you have spoken!"

"Look, I've got nothing against the girl, honest!" Winchester assured the redhead before she became any more enraged. "I only went after her to get back at your captain for making a joke of me." He grumbled in annoyance, but Pyrrha could see that a majority of the animosity she would have expected with such a statement was absent.

"That still does not explain why you targeted Yang of all people. Surely myself or another from our team would have made more sense," Pyrrha reasoned. In all honesty she was just trying to distract herself from her mounting dread with this passing curiosity. The sounds of fighting has ceased about thirty seconds ago. Either something very good or very bad had happened and she had no way of knowing which.

"If you can't go after a man, you go after his girl," Cardin explained with increasingly unrestrained embarrassment. The more he said his plan aloud the more he felt like a scumbag. Pyrrha merely blinked with a blank expression on her face.

"Come again?" She asked simply.

"Look I know it's lame, and I already feel like a tool, but since he was so strong we went after his girlfriend, alright?!" Cardin spit out the words as fast as he could and then banged the back of his head against the tree he was leaning on in self-punishment. The expression Pyrrha wore was truly indescribable.

"They aren't dating," her voice eventually came out stern and authoritarian, her jaw locked as her teeth almost ground together. Cardin quickly intuited the reality of his situation and the nature of the spartan's relationship with her captain, even if said girl hadn't realized it herself.

"Must have just been one of those rumors, then! Everyone at school noticed how she keeps draping herself over him all the time, I guess people just assumed they were a couple because of it. I mean she only does that to him, and he only lets her do that, so-" Cardin realized mid-sentence that last bit was not even close to what he should have said. Being in Pyrrha's presence right now could only be described as stifling. Cardin was saved from the incredibly awkward situation when a whining feminine voice broke the silence.

"C'mon Foxy, go faster!" Yang's voice sounded through the trees.

"For the love of- shut up and hold on tight." Naruto loudly grumbled in clear exasperation.

"I love it when a man takes charge, don't mind if I do!" You could practically hear the grin on Yang's voice in the distance.

"Blonde women… I swear you'll all be the death of me," Naruto complained as he came into view giving a happily humming Yang a piggyback ride. His arms were wrapped around her bare legs as he held her aloft while her arms were draped across his neck and over his chest, her head nestled into the crook of his shoulder. True to request she was clearly holding on tight as her bountiful breasts flattened against his back. "Glad to see you're both alright," Naruto said with a tone of relief. "I didn't think I let any go, but did any of them get through to you?"

Cardin shook his head from his seated position. He couldn't find the words to say exactly what he felt. He had set out to get revenge on someone who would then immediately go to fight impossible odds to save him. He knew that if Naruto had come into any real danger he would have tried to step in and help too, but being on the receiving end certainly made him feel like more of an asshole. Naruto took a deep breath and let loose an exhausted sigh.

"Look, I'm pretty sure I get the whole 'pranking me for revenge' thing and I can't even say it bothers me that much. Kami knows as a kid I did my own fair share of revenge pranks," he let a small chuckle through as he seemed to be involuntarily whisked away to a distant memory. Yang glared daggers into Cardin from Naruto's back, but ultimately appeared to decide that she would stay quiet for now. "Let's get one thing clear though. Next time you want revenge on me you go and get it on me. If you ever go after any of my team, or team RWBY again, I won't save you a second time. We clear?"

Cardin couldn't comprehend what was happening. Even so recently after the fact he knew he had done something incredibly dangerous, petty, and overall childish. He expected to get the ninth degree from the NNVR captain, but instead got off with a firm demand to only harass the blonde himself. His voice clearly held the tone of someone who would accept no argument, but Cardin still couldn't begin to understand what was happening.

"You aren't telling me not to fuck with you again?" Cardin asked doubtingly. Naruto just shook his head. "Why?" Cardin asked in simple bewilderment.

"I know I can take it and I don't honestly give a damn what you do to me. Rather than risk you venting your frustrations on someone who can't handle them I'd rather you focus them on me because I can. You signed up here to be a hunter, so I knew you couldn't be that bad. I honestly didn't even have an issue with you until you bullied Velvet. Goodwitch just seems hellbent on pairing us together." Naruto gave an exasperated sigh remembering the professor's persistence. "But I honestly figure everyone has some good in them. I've seen people do far worse than what you just did and come back from it to save a lot of lives. So I'll just shoulder the weight of your hate until you can let it go, because that is something I'm strong enough to do," Naruto said with a cheeky grin.

Cardin's thoughts were in chaos as the spiky blonde finished speaking. He had decided he would be a huntsman when he was still a kid. Over the years nothing anyone could say or do to him had dissuaded him from the path he had set out on, but presently he couldn't help but imagine that the six year old version of himself would have been disappointed in who he had become. Despite what he had suffered at the hands of the faunus and other bullies he wouldn't have wanted himself to become what he had hated.

"I…" Cardin started ashamedly, "I'm not sure if it matters… but I don't think I'm gonna bully you guys or anyone else from now on. I'm pretty sure kid me would kick my ass if he saw everything I've been doing and… I'm sorry." Cardin looked away and focused on a spot on the ground to avoid looking any of the group in the eye. He was determined to avoid what he was sure was going to be the eyes of judgement until he heard Naruto break out in an understanding laugh.

"Sometimes you just get off on the wrong path and think that the only choice you have left is to walk it. Best thing you can do is realize that it is never too late to change who you are or to start doing the right thing. Fix your attitude and stop being a prick and I'm sure you'll become a huntsman that would make your childhood self proud!" Naruto assured him with a confident beam that stretched from ear to ear. Cardin self-loathing frown refused to abate and so he didn't return the smile, but deep down he knew he had resolved himself to that exact plan before it was even said.

Naruto's ears seemed to twitch and he quickly addressed all three of them in a hurried whisper. "Okay guys, when she asks, Yang tripped into Cardin and that's when you both got covered in sap. During the fall Cardin sprained his ankle and then we got attacked by five, FIVE, ursa. Got it?" Naruto repeated the number imploringly. Cardin wasn't sure what was going on until Professor Goodwitch burst through the trees looking ready for battle.

"Where is Mr. Winchester? Is everyone sa- oh good, it appears as if all of you are in adequate condition," Professor Goodwitch's tone changed to its normal strictness as she quickly realized the danger had passed. "What exactly happened here?" She pressed the students immediately afterward.

"We got in a fight with some grimm, but Cardin was injured and I was worried more might be attracted. I sent the rest of Cardin's team to find you in case any more were attracted to the combat." Naruto explained succinctly.

"Yeah!" Yang agreed all too quickly, "I was being a ditz and wasn't paying attention when I tripped and fell into Winchester. He managed to catch me as I fell, but the jars of sap he had been collecting got us both covered and started attracting the ursai. He ended up spraining his ankle pretty bad so we couldn't run away." She continued to explain what had 'happened'.

"What of the circular depression in the ground I passed by on the way here?" She asked with eyes narrowed at a poker-faced Naruto. Pyrrha quickly stepped in to her leader's defense.

"We also noticed that when we arrived. I thought it was suspicious so I had decided to ask you about it when we next saw you. Are you also unaware as to what could have caused it?" Pyrrha asked with perfectly feigned innocent curiosity. Goodwitch shook her head and looked to Cardin.

"What of the ursai pack that attacked you Mr. Winchester? Your team described them to be incredibly numerous." She asked pointedly. Cardin paused for multiple seconds before coming to a decision.

"Well you see there were these five ursai…"

* * *

"Thank you," Naruto whispered quietly to Cardin as they walked multiple paces behind Professor Goodwitch. Cardin limped slowly on his field splinted foot and was ultimately the one setting the pace of the group. Naruto was still carrying Yang in the center of their marching formation while Pyrrha took up the defensive rear.

"My grandfather always taught me that you should always return favors as quickly as you can. He said they were a pain in the ass thing that would kick your nads in the second that you forgot about them," Cardin chuckled to which Naruto joined in.

"Smart guy," Naruto admitted as he finished laughing. Cardin nodded with a face conflicted between pride and grief.

"He passed away recently," Cardin admitted to the surprised expressions of the group. Yang and Pyrrha were surprised at the news, but Naruto had easily been able to recognize the signs of loss. Naruto was still surprised, but more so at the revelation of the information itself than at its content. "He was a huntsman for a long time, but eventually retired and started an outreach program for youth. It was kind of a mix between an orphanage, and a prospective huntsmen program," Cardin continued.

"He wanted to help children who dreamed of being huntsmen get on the right path to doing so, but he was also pretty merciless in dispelling the notion that being a huntsman was heroic. He'd tell stories about missions that went on long after he had ran out of supplies, where he had to eat rodents and foraged roots just to get through the day. He'd tell the kids stories like that all the time so they would learn that it wasn't all fairy tales and hero worship. Even though he made it abundantly clear that it wasn't an easy or privileged lifestyle the percentage of kids he took care of that went on to be huntsmen was nothing to snuff at." Naruto was about to ask Cardin a question, but Cardin had already decided to answer it before it was spoken.

"He took care of a lot of faunus kids too. He treated them just like he would any other of the brats he looked after. That wasn't a problem until recently… he started getting complaints from the White Fang to stop 'polluting the minds of their youth'. They claimed he was recruiting faunus youths and brainwashing them to be used against their own kind. He didn't take any what they said seriously and just cursed up a storm and continued on as if nothing happened. For a few more years that was fine, but eventually the White Fang grew more aggressive and more militant. Peaceful protesters turned into terrorists and their complaints quickly became threats." Cardin gave a depressed sigh, everyone had already guessed how this story ended.

"Fast forward to a few months ago and they ambushed him at the orphanage and killed him. Even in his old age he would have been more than a match for them… but they took a human kid hostage and threatened to kill her if he resisted. They beat him relentlessly until his aura was spent and then finished him slowly and painfully. They even did it in front of the kids…" Cardin admitted. It was only through the accounts of the children that he even knew how it had happened. If you looked across their faces you would see the utter horror on Pyrrha's, the anger on Yang's, and Naruto just wore a sad grimace.

"I'm not trying to say I did the right thing, but there was a reason I went after that rabbit faunus. I blamed the entire faunus race for their mindset that all humans were looking to screw them in one way or another. If the Fang had even tried to look at what my grandpa was doing they would have seen he wasn't even close to being a racist or whatever they thought he was. Their whole race has had some pretty damn bad beats from humankind and I understood that, but they couldn't blame the people responsible and started blaming the entire human race."

"Just like you did." Naruto said in a plain and quiet tone. Cardin sighed in regret.

"Yeah… looks like I became what I hated after all. Just like they did..." Cardin's gaze dropped shamefaced to his limping leg as they continued to press on towards the rendezvous point.

"Never expected to give this speech twice so quickly, but all of you had suffered a great pain. In response to the injustice you had suffered you all set out to claim justice in the name of the pain you had endured. The White Fang suffered at the hands of humans so they sought to punish your jiichan because they thought he was part of the problem. In the end they were blinded by their pain and anger and that drove them to decide that he was the enemy. The evil they committed against an innocent man would then drive you to your own pain. Eventually you too would seek justice and use your pain to justify what you did to an innocent faunus," Naruto surmised. Cardin would have resented his motives being likened to the White Fang earlier today, but quite a lot had changed.

"I had a similar problem too once. A terrorist killed a lot of people I cared about and asked me how I would stop the cyclical nature of pain. I honestly didn't think I'd be able to find an answer because I wanted him to die for what he did at first. Eventually I decided that I'd believe in the good in people and decided I would not take my revenge." Cardin looked at him with unabashed shock. His expression at that point could easily have defined disbelief.

"You can't just forgive someone for killing the people you love!" Cardin shouted loud enough that Glynda could easily hear. Unbeknownst to Cardin she had been listening in on most of the conversation.

"Yeah, you're right," Naruto admitted candidly. "I didn't really want to forgive him, I didn't even think he deserved forgiveness. In the end the answer I came to on how to stop the cycle of pain and hate was to be willing to give up my own. I decided that I wanted to protect the people more than I wanted my own revenge. My willingness to move past my own pain changed that terrorist and he devoted the rest of his life to saving people's lives. He had decided that if I was willing to move past the pain he had caused me then he should be able to do the same. You might not agree with me, but I think to be a huntsman means to put protecting the people as your highest priority. To me that means protecting the people even if you don't like them or if they don't deserve it… regardless of the risk you put yourself in." Naruto finished with a smile so small that it was barely perceivable.

The group continued on in silence for a few more minutes before Cardin's clear and resounding voice broke through it. "When I really think about it I don't think Grandpa would want me to blame anyone for his death except those responsible. I can't say I am ever going to be able to forgive the White Fang for killing him like you did… but I think he'd just bend me over his knee and wail on my ass for being such a dick recently," Cardin chuckled at the thought as it was all too easy to imagine. "So I think I'm just going to try and honor the decisions he made by being the kind of person he was. He protected everyone he could regardless of who or what they were. I think I'll do that too."

The other three all gave him dazzling and encouraging smiles filled to the brim with support and warmth. Even ahead of them Glynda's usual stoic expression wavered with the flicker of upturned lips. Surprisingly the happiest of the group was not Naruto himself, but his partner.

* * *

 _Everyone who comes into contact with him changes in such a short time. Weiss has reconciled her grievances with her leader, my own emptiness is becoming full, and now in just an afternoon a bully has become a protector. Every person he interacts with can't help but start to become dyed in his colors. I'm… I'm so grateful to have met him._ Pyrrha thought to herself as they walked. The conversation had completely died off as they continued in silence. Once again it was broken, but this time by Yang.

"Glad you've had a change of heart and whatever, but you're still dead Winchester," she said in a light voice that greatly contrasted her dark threat. Cardin shifted from a content expression to a more skittish one.

"Uhhhh… why?" He asked with a wince. Yang leveled him with a baleful glare.

"Red sap… In. My. Hair." She whispered in a voice quiet enough that Goodwitch could not hear, but the murder in her voice still sent a shiver through Cardin's spine.

"I'm sorry?" Cardin said with suggestion in his tone, hoping that it would be enough to abate the killing intent oozing out of the blonde on Naruto's back. Of course there would be no such mercy for him.

"You owe me, big, for the rest of eternity," she demanded, continuing to escalate in severity. Balking under the threat of a life of eternal debt-induced servitude, Cardin looked to Naruto for help. All he got from his last hope was a shake of the head.

"Another lesson I've learned is that women are scary and take what they want regardless of your opinion. I advise accepting your fate before she resorts to physical violence to make you accept it," Naruto shuddered in remembrance of the numerous women who had done just that when he protested their demands, however unreasonable. Cardin just nodded glumly and continued to slowly plod on like a spurned animal. Pyrrha giggled at Naruto's bizarre subservience to the whims of women.

"This is taking too long," Professor Goodwitch suddenly declared out of nowhere. "Mr. Uzumaki, if you would please allow Ms. Xiao Long to walk on her own so you can help Mr. Winchester to the rendezvous that would be appreciated," Goodwitch commanded. Naruto seemed puzzled at the sudden request.

"I'm only carrying Yang because she can't walk. She sprained her ankle really bad in the fight against the ursai," Naruto explained. Professor Goodwitch stopped their procession and then quickly turned around to face them.

"Ms. Xiao Long is completely uninjured. She can walk on her own, now," the professor ordered. Naruto turned his head to face Yang who smiled at him sheepishly. She slowly unwrapped her arms and legs from around him and then freed her thighs from his grip. She touched her feet down on the ground and stood without the slightest sign of injury.

"Wow! I'm healed!" Yang exclaimed lamely. "You sure you don't have a healing semblance shacked up there too Foxy?" Naruto face palmed and dragged his hand across his face in exasperation.

"Damnit Yang…" Naruto groaned as he shook his head in disbelief. Unfortunately he didn't notice that behind him Pyrrha's face had begun to violently twitch.

" _Everyone at school noticed how she keeps draping herself over him all the time..."_ Pyrrha recalled Cardin saying earlier. Slowly the twitch in her face developed into a ferocious scowl. That scowl only lasted for a moment as her lips slowly curled up into a beaming smile.

"Na-ru-to." The three distinct syllables said in Pyrrha's sugary sweet voice pierced through the air straight to Naruto. His hair stood up on end as his survival instinct kicked in. He recognized the overly pleasant voice Sakura had used many times before when her foul mood had transcended even anger. Finding that same tone again a dimension away was a horror he had hoped never came to pass.

"Y-yes Pyrrha-chan?" He added the suffix instinctually as her mood reminded him of the punching, pink haired avatar of rage.

"I have noticed that you don't quite seem to understand what is proper physical contact between friends of the opposite sex. It has been made increasingly apparent that I am going to **have to teach you**." She said the last words with such force that Naruto knew no opposition could be mounted, but that didn't stop him from trying.

"Haha, cmon Pyr! That was totally not my fault! I didn't even know tha-" He was caught off by the increasing intensity of her beaming smile. Naruto could see his death fast approaching and looked to his newfound ally for support. All Cardin gave him was a small shrug and a grin containing both mirth and vengeance.

"Women are scary…" Cardin trailed off simply.

* * *

Naruto followed Glynda through the halls of the school. After a particularly awkward bullhead ride where Pyrrha gave him a dressing down in front of the entire class about proper etiquette towards females, he had been whisked away by the professor saying that Ozpin wanted to see him. He was keeping up with her brusque pace when a familiar face finally came into view.

 _Gaki, we need to talk_. Kurama communicated mentally as he lithely jumped onto his recently vacant perch across Naruto's shoulders.

 _Yeah I'll say. Where the hell have you been?_ Naruto asked with annoyance at his partner. If Kurama had been with him he could have had him stay behind to protect Cardin, thus preventing the need to use Hiraishin in front of Yang. Thankfully it seemed like she hadn't seen or processed what happened, but it was still a huge risk.

 _I've been poking around that curiosity I told you about. Luckily I managed to more or less confirm a few things about it. I take it this one is taking you to see the old man?_ Kurama asked. Naruto nodded in affirmation as he continued to walk behind Glynda. _Then I have the best timing. I've got a plan to get him off our back completely, or at least give us some breathing room._ Naruto smiled at the claim of his fox partner.

 _All right then, fill me in._

* * *

Ozpin watched as the boy that had occupied a large majority of his fascination walked into the room and sat down before him. After making sure no conflict would arise Glynda exited back through the door and closed it behind her. "Well Mr. Uzumaki. It has been some time since we last spoke to each other," Ozpin said from his seat behind his desk. The boy merely rolled his eyes.

"It has been a little over a week since my interview. Do you invite every student here so frequently?" Naruto probed transparently. Ozpin gave a short chuckle before responding.

"Unfortunately I have not the time to do so," he admitted.

"Glad to hear I'm so special," Naruto said with an entirely disingenuous tone. "What makes me so lucky?" Ozpin gave a calculated smile.

"I'd say what makes you special is that you are quite different from the average student. I have an entire school full of promising hunters and huntresses in training trying to prove how capable they are. On the other hand I have one huntsman who seems to be quite determined to conceal from me how capable he is. As a man of science and curiosity I can't help but wonder what makes the outlier so different," Ozpin declared as he attempted to look through Naruto's eyes to glean his intent. The fox on his shoulders bared its teeth in a soundless growl. Naruto looked to it and lightly flicked its ear and then set his gaze back to Ozpin.

"Who wouldn't get nervous about an old man following them through the hallways and eavesdropping on their conversations?" Naruto asked accusingly. Ozpin gave a satisfied smile in return.

"I had a feeling you were aware of my presence, but I am nonetheless impressed that you noticed. I go through great pains to remain undetected when I wish not to be," He said ominously. Now it was Naruto's turn to look into his eyes and perceive his intentions.

"Everyone's aura has a certain feeling or nature that I can see. It can give me an idea about what they do, how strong they are, or even what kind of person they are," Naruto admitted. Ozpin couldn't help but conceal a small bit of surprise at the willing admission of another ability from the secretive boy. "You on the other hand… when I first saw you I couldn't feel anything beyond the fact that you existed. I quickly committed the sensation to memory. When everyone else feels alive with energy it is pretty easy to track the only one who doesn't." Ozpin's face remained emotionless besides the look of smug curiosity he always wore.

"An interesting talent to be sure," Ozpin admitted with slight praise. "I will have to bear that in mind for the future." At this Naruto sighed and looked away as if exhausted. After a few seconds he raised his head to return Ozpin's gaze.

"To be honest I find this exhausting. Playing mouse to your cat is not something I want to spend every day at Beacon doing," Naruto admitted.

"In that case why not be more forthcoming Mr. Uzumaki? If you were to reveal what you are trying to hide I would not need to bother you looking for it," Ozpin suggested with casual ease. Naruto laughed openly for a few seconds before turning his focus back to him.

"What exactly do you wish to know?" He asked.

"Well for one I have been told by Professor Goodwitch that she had a team of boys yelling at her that their leader had been left with you, Ms. Xiao Long, and Ms. Nikos and that she needed to rush to save you. The way they told their story would make one think there was nothing short of an army of ursai that had set upon you. However, when Professor Goodwitch came to your rescue she found you all in one piece, claiming a mere five had caused the not unsubstantial panic in the three CRDL members. More interesting than that was the fact that the leader of said team also corroborated that story. So here I am left wondering whether or not I have three students who all simultaneously shared a joint hallucination, or four students who are for some reason lying to keep something hidden." Ozpin mused his quandary aloud to a poker-faced Naruto. He returned the musings with a small shrug.

"As it stands I can say with certainty it was definitely five ursai," Naruto said nonchalantly. The lips of the headmaster lost their slight upward curl and adopted one that was equally slightly downward.

"As it stands, you say?" Ozpin asked scrutinizingly.

"My godfather once told me that when it came to information, you should never give something for nothing. In the spirit of that I have an offer for you," Naruto began to enact Kurama's plan. Ozpin arched an eyebrow in curiosity.

"Oh? And do tell me Mr. Uzumaki what is this proposition of yours?" Ozpin asked with slight amusement. Naruto returned a bemused expression, but beneath that he was nothing if not serious. He had to lay the bait casually enough so that nothing could be expected.

"Even though I could try to spend my days hiding from your watch and making myself scarce I did not come here to worry about looking over my shoulder at every moment. I want you to stop relentlessly probing for information about me. If you want to watch your cameras and see what I do then I won't stop you, but the investigations I'm sure you've already started need to stop. I also want you to have the professors stop using others to probe for information about me and what I can do. Goodwitch has called me up three times in the first week alone, an idea I'm sure was not hers." Naruto suggested the true culprit with a knowing look at Ozpin. He merely gave a small smile to the accusation with no actual admission. Naruto sighed and pressed on.

"However, I'm sure you want something in return for an act of kindness so great as letting me live my life… So for every question of mine you answer I will answer one of yours in return," Naruto stated his offer with a hint of maliciousness. Ozpin eyed him quizzically.

"What do I have that you could possibly wish to know Mr. Uzumaki?" Ozpin cautiously probed. He responded with a slightly antagonistic chuckle.

"You're the headmaster of the entire Beacon Academy, but I'm sure you've done some bad things over the years. I intend to ask you questions so embarrassing you either leave me alone, or I at least gain some dirt on the mysterious headmaster," Naruto admitted with a small amount of sadism. Ozpin quickly considered his options.

Presently his investigations had stalled out completely. That wasn't to say he would never find out anything about the boy or where he came from, but as it stood he had nothing to go off of. He could always just expel him and be done with it, but Ozpin's experience told him that the boy was genuine and a force for good. That gut feeling was the only reason he had allowed him into Beacon in the first place.

The problem was that by agreeing to his terms he was agreeing to stop his investigations as well of those who would investigate on his behalf. There were really only two possible reasons for the boy's proposal. On one hand it could truly just be the annoyance he felt at being investigated. Having been the subject of many over the years Ozpin could understand that it wasn't particularly enjoyable to always be watching every move you make for fear you might be found out.

The other option was the one Ozpin thought was far more likely. If the boy wanted him to stop looking for information it could imply that there was indeed information to look for. Ozpin grimaced slightly as he once again reminded himself that every stone he had turned over looking for information about him had been completely devoid of such bounty. For all he could tell the boy had simply sprung into existence the day he walked into his office.

Ozpin had originally speculated that he might have been one of _her_ agents. However, in the mere week that he had been in the school he had been nothing but a force of good for the student body. Already he had begun to smooth the edges of the abrasive Ms. Schnee, Ms. Nikos seemed to be more at ease and happy as well, and if Professor Goodwitch was to be believed even Mr. Winchester had seemed substantially changed for the better after brief contact with this bizarre boy.

Ultimately he came to a decision. Even if Naruto asked him something that would Identify him as one of _her_ pawns it was not as if he was obligated to answer. At that point he could simply decline and he would reveal himself as a threat. Seeing nothing to lose Ozpin started to speak.

"Although intrigued by your offer, I can't help but find myself wondering how balanced these terms are. I am expected to both answer a question and offer other concessions besides to merely get one question answered from you? I feel I deserve something in addition," Naruto looked completely unsurprised by his words. He easily began to speak again.

"In that case why don't I offer you a promise?" Naruto offered vaguely. Ozpin once again arched an eyebrow.

"Oh? And what kind of promise would you be offering?" Ozpin inquired curiously. Naruto proceeded to stare him down with an oppressive aura.

"You see, I figure that you are one of two kinds of people Ozpin. Either you are a protector of your students and the people of Remnant, or you are someone who seeks the power of others your position affords to achieve your own ends. I think I'll make you an offer that helps me answer that question; I promise to also be a force of good for the students of this academy and the people of Remnant if you agree to this deal." Ozpin observed the way in which Naruto looked at him as he said that. His vast experience told him that this was the moment in which Ozpin's answer would decide if they were to be friends or enemies.

Ozpin broke into a small smile. "When you put it that way I feel as if I have no choice but to accept," he said with amusement. The tension continued to stagnate the air as they both knew that he had not actually given an answer. Feeling simultaneously satisfied and as if he had been put into check Ozpin sighed. "I agree to your terms. We will do a question for a question." Naruto smiled back as soon as the words had left Ozpin's lips.

"Glad to hear it." Naruto said earnestly. The tension in the aura dissipated almost instantly and the room felt strangely vacant in its absence. "Then for the exact terms of the questioning I have two demands. The first is that we shall not lie, and the second is that I will ask the first question." Ozpin took a sip of coffee for the first time in their conversation.

"Naturally it is important to be honest in a situation such as this, but why should I give you the first question?" Ozpin continued to attempt to pry into Naruto's intent. He once again shrugged casually and answered.

"Plenty of adults will take what they want and then go back on their promises. I know I will keep my word, but I can't be sure about yours." Ozpin nodded at the statement. He had no reason to believe the boy would be honest either, but the blonde somehow inspired confidence in his integrity despite his naturally stealthy disposition about information regarding him.

"Well then I believe you get to fire the first shot Mr. Uzumaki. I agree to your terms." Ozpin said invitingly. He was thoroughly convinced that the boy was not one of _her_ missives. He had shown time and again that he was far to genuine to be one.

"I've been poking around the school and found something that seemed bizarre to me. Buried beneath the school is a powerful source of energy, but it appears as if it is slowly burning out like a lit candle. What is this energy I'm sensing?" Naruto asked with a narrowed visage. Ozpin's breath caught in his throat for a moment as he immediately reconsidered his view of the boy. In a simple question he had completely reversed Ozpin's certainty that he was not one of _her_ agents.

"It is an experiment of mine. I am trying to find a way to mechanically simulate human aura. Due to the incomplete nature of the apparatus it has slowly been failing since its construction. I imagine this is the fading aura you sensed." Ozpin lied through his teeth. Naruto scoffed and then shook his head.

"You see this is why I wanted to ask my question first, so that when you lied to my face I didn't give an answer for nothing." Naruto criticized the elder across from him. "First off the energy I sensed was very much from something living, trust me I've seen the difference." Naruto claimed as he remembered his many fights with puppets, elemental constructs, and other such artificial creations. "Secondly the energy is not aura." Naruto added succinctly. Ozpin's eyes turned to daggers as he looked at the boy with renewed fervor. Naruto could sense that Ozpin now viewed him not as a curiosity, but a threat. He knew at that moment he had stepped into something big.

"What do you think is down there?" Ozpin asked cordially. Naruto merely chuckled.

"I honestly don't have a clue." He admitted. This took Ozpin aback as he was quickly formulating a whole new profile of Naruto that consisted with him being a spy of sorts. The sheer honesty he felt coming from him when he made that statement left him a bit taken aback.

"Then why is it you wish to know?" Ozpin asked with his mental guard still raised. Naruto smiled deviously as if his plan had been realized.

"I honestly don't care," He confessed with a short burst of laughter. Ozpin's normally imperceptible visage looked very humanly abashed which only caused Naruto to burst into laughter again. After a few seconds of joviality Naruto regained his composure and continued. "I asked because I thought it was a question you would refuse to answer. Whatever is down there is clearly something important enough for you to hide beneath the school. You've already agreed not to investigate me apart from question for question, your refusal to answer was exactly what I was looking for." Naruto answered with a playful grin.

After a few seconds of complete silence Ozpin broke the tension with an impressed smile. "You never intended to learn about what was beneath the school, but sought to make me underestimate you to put me into a position where learning more about you would require me to reveal something which I could not?" Ozpin asked with a tone riddle in amusement.

"You got it!" Naruto grinned in joyous relief. "Now you keep your end of the deal and leave me alone." Ozpin chuckled as he accepted he had lost a game of wits for the first time in quite some while.

"You do know this only makes me more curious about you, right?" Ozpin admitted freely. Naruto waved him off like an annoying fly.

"Yeah, whatever old man. Learn to deal with disappointment and you'll live longer." Naruto griped with a pout. Ozpin had briefly considered the possibility that he did not seek further information because he already knew what lay beneath, but everything he did from what he said to the way he said it inspired trust. Either the boy was being honest, or he was the best liar Ozpin had ever seen.

"I can't say I disagree. Now I do believe you have put me in checkmate Mr. Uzumaki. Unless there comes a time where I can reveal to you the secret of which you asked it appears I will have to learn to live with the disappointment of curiosity left unsated," Ozpin's words sounded happier than one might expect someone who had been so cornered to feel, but that was just the point. Before him was a huntsman of strength and integrity, passion to protect with the temperance to be cautious, empathy to help those around him with the iron forged will necessary to face danger. Ozpin might not have gotten the information he wanted, but he knew he had a huntsman that might be the key in battle to come.

"Yeah, just don't go getting so curious you go back on your word. You already lied to me once, I'll be watching for the second," Naruto cautioned. Ozpin once again chuckled at the boy's careful nature.

"I would not dream of it. You are dismissed Mr. Uzumaki, thank you for this fun and enlightening conversation." Ozpin said as the boy had already begun to stand up.

"Yeah, fun, barrel of laughs." Naruto grumbled as he made his way out of the office. Ozpin found himself more amused than he had been in years as the oddity known as Naruto Uzumaki's back continued to shrink as he made his way to the door.

"Well, he did say I could use the cameras." Ozpin mused in in self-consolation as he resumed the mundane paperwork he had been doing his utmost to avoid.


	13. A Duality of Nature

**_Greetings and salutations everyone. Welcome to OFNT chapter 12! Been awhile since I've updated this story, but we're back! This chapter is really about sewing the seeds that the characters are eventually going to have to deal with. I'm hopeful that it won't be too boring overall. I was debating cancelling the series due to a slew of generally dissatisfied comments with it, but decided to post at least another chapter before I called it. Not sure if I'll be continuing the series or not, but here is the next chapter of An Old Fox's New Trick for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!_**

* * *

 **Chapter 12**

 **A Duality of Nature**

There were some skills that you didn't cultivate naturally regardless of how long you lived. With his nose buried in an economics text, Naruto was really beginning to understand that fact. He sighed as a beam of light managed to pierce through the drawn shades of his window and obfuscate part of the page in blindingly bright light. He leaned back in his chair with an irritated groan and stared at the tiled ceiling of his office.

He had modeled the room to be a near replica of the Hokage's office. Despite how old he was, part of him couldn't help but shake the dream of becoming the Hokage himself. He figured this was the closest he was going to get and decided to take some liberties with the construction of his office. The one alteration was that there was an overly extravagant small circular bed that Kurama almost permanently napped in, as he did now. This room was merely a subsect of the modest two story home that he resided in.

He had used shadow clones to build it to the direction of the local carpenter who oversaw its construction. Originally he had planned to use the wood release jutsu to build it as he had seen Yamato do time and time again. Naruto made only a singular attempt of using mokuton to erect the building as he envisioned it, however, his control of the jutsu was wild and unrefined. All he managed to do was make an overly dense forest on the peak that he then had to chop down with an army of clones. The hidden boon of his failed attempt was that the freshly sprouted forest had supplied him with more than enough high quality lumber for the carpenter's plans.

His home stood atop a grassy peak overlooking the ocean, towards which his office window faced. He redirected his gaze from the ceiling to look out at the blue waves as they slowly lapped to the sandy shore. Three children, two boys and a girl, were playing in the sand making castles together. Naruto looked upon the heartwarming scene with a complicated expression, for he knew that those innocent kids were now his responsibility.

He reopened his book and continued reading about managing small economies. His current quandary was the very children he had been looking at moments ago; well, at least they were part of it. In reality it was the entire budding town that his home overlooked that was the cause of his newest determination to study. He had made the gut decision that he couldn't let a group of innocent people be jailed by that ass of a Raikage. Still, that didn't change the fact that a lot of the luxuries of a large capital city were absent.

The people he had taken under his wing numbered around a hundred. If he only took into account those that were considered adults, the number plummeted to around 70 percent of that. Unfortunately that thought only opened another door that he hadn't decided if he should address. "Maybe I should be a little old fashioned," Naruto mumbled to himself. The age of adulthood and been steadily pushed back over the decades. At first Naruto couldn't help but agree with the logic that twelve year olds didn't need to be facing life-or-death situations. The required genin age was set to fourteen a few years after the fall of Kaguya, with his support. In the most recent years since the new generation of kages had taken over, the new leaders had pushed the age of adulthood back another four.

It wasn't just like everyone simultaneously agreed that fourteen was too young. Overall, the arguments for pushing it back were just insidiously clever and persuasive. They promoted a more institutionalized schooling that would occupy the majority of childhood. Through that schooling the children could then use their certifications as some sort of proof of competence. They would say they graduated from one school or another, and display the various accolades they had earned while attending. For some kids it ended up working out; for others, not so much.

The increase in skilled labor was sizable after the first few years of the new schools, which the kages were quick to preen about whenever asked. The flip side was that there were more kids who failed or dropped out of school and had nowhere to go. A life they would have spent learning the trade of their family or under an apprenticeship was instead spent in a classroom. If they managed to pass through and secure a job then some of the skills they learned would be worth their weight in gold. On the other hand, if they failed then most subjects were just years of dead weight.

A sense of purposelessness gripped many of the new generation. When Naruto first observed the newfound aimlessness in people he expected the crime rates to go up, yet they did so only minorly. All that had changed was that there were more people who didn't have any trade to call their own. "Are the old ways _really_ just better?" Naruto grumbled to himself in an attempt to remain objective. He obviously had reason to believe that the way he grew up wasn't all bad, but was this new world really so wrong? Barring the Raikage and his reaction to a peaceful protest the world had become much more peaceful, so shouldn't he count that as a win?

He didn't, regardless of how much some part of him felt that he should. Just as he started to chastise himself for such a way of thinking, a knock came at the door in three distinctly sharp raps. "Come in, Alugard," Naruto said with gratitude towards his regular late afternoon distraction. The door made way for a man who looked to be in his late forties or early fifties. The trait that most accentuated this impression was his long grey hair and painter's brush mustache. His grey eyes were nothing if not business and he presented himself with perfect posture.

"Naruto-sama, I come again with the daily update," he said in a tone both formal and respectful. Naruto waved him off with a chuckle.

"Please, I'm nobody's master," Naruto replied with a hint of amusement. The reply he got was delivered in the same tone as the last.

"You saved us all when the whole world was willing to look away. Where most saw a group of criminals getting their just desserts it was you who saw an injustice that you could not let stand. For saving all of the protestors, including myself, and most importantly my three wards, I am forevermore beholden to you." As he finished he bowed his head in respect. Naruto just rolled his eyes and sat up in his chair. The conversation had played out so many times at this point that Naruto could have had it with himself, but it appeared the man was every bit as stubborn as he was.

"We'll just have to agree to disagree again," Naruto said with a tone of slight agitation. The other man smiled at him knowing that he wasn't truly upset. "How is everything going?"

"Similar to yesterday. Food is not an issue due to the aid offered by the Hidden Leaf. Everyone is incredibly grateful for your timely intervention and there has been no crime nor infighting to speak of."

"But?" Naruto intoned questioningly.

"The lack of housing is causing some friction between people. I took a tally of the individual families and to fulfill the needs of everyone here we would need thirty-five houses for individuals or couples, eleven houses for families of three to four, and there are five families requesting housing that can fit up to eight people. Most of the families of that size are consisting of mothers and fathers who are also taking care of their own elderly parents. With the limited housing we've been able to construct, we've allocated most of it to the elderly and children; the rest of us are still sleeping in tents. And the children staying in your downstairs living area you are already aware of." Alugard's mention of the tents caused Naruto to wince.

Naruto had taken in as many children as could fit comfortably in the downstairs area of his house, and then some. He wanted to give up his office and his own bedroom as well, but Alugard had advised against it, saying that at least some of the formalities of leadership should be held on to, and that the people also might not accept out of respect for what Naruto had done for them. Naruto knew that this counsel came from a place of both admiration and wisdom, and so decided to heed it, if not begrudgingly.

He was able to build an army of clones to take care of labor and they did not want for lumber, however, there was so much more to building a house that he didn't even know. Nowadays they poured a thick black substance, called asphalt, into moulds to make the shingles for roofs. Naruto had inquired with the carpenter on how to make this 'asphalt', but ultimately the knowledge was useless because the substance required something known as pitch. This 'pitch' was made of plants or charcoal, neither of which they had access to. As forthcoming as the Hidden Leaf had been with food and temporary shelter, they were unable to go so far as to build the town itself. Naruto didn't hold that against them, for he knew they would be under heavy scrutiny for allocating him land to live on in addition to the supplies they had already provided.

To that end Konohamaru had said he could move one of the companies that dealt in asphalt to sell it to him at a reduced price. He had explained to Naruto that even if the sale was slightly below market value it would be considerably harder to assign blame to the Leaf than it would be with an all out financing. Such was the reason Naruto had been looking into what this small town-to-be could do to not only sustain itself, but thrive.

Sadly, asphalt wasn't the end of their problems. Naruto was completely flabbergasted to learn that a singular home consisted of nothing less than an average of three-hundred pounds of nails. When he first heard the figure he had thought he heard 'three-hundred nails' and had remarked that it shouldn't be too hard to obtain that amount. The Naruto of present couldn't help but wish he had heard him correctly.

"Any progress on securing a supply of nails?" Naruto asked absently, still lost in his thoughts.

"Plenty of people are willing to supply us with nails. That doesn't change the fact that the refugees do not have the capital present to purchase them," Alugard reminded him. Naruto once again winced in shame. He had managed to save the individuals themselves, but their properties had been seized by the Hidden Cloud. Some had managed to save some heirlooms or small valuables, but even then they would have to travel to the nearest town to sell them. The part that made him ashamed was that this group of people who just wanted to stand up for what they believed in _were_ effectively living as refugees. Naruto had rationalized that living in tents was better than living in a cell, however, that didn't stop him from sympathizing with the reality of losing almost everything they had.

"How much are they asking?" Naruto asked glumly.

"If we pooled together everything of value that the people here were willing to part with and sold it, then we would have enough nails for about half the homes," Alugard answered back in a matter-of-fact tone. Naruto massaged his temples in frustration. Simply securing the nails for half the homes would cost everything these people had! He eventually calmed himself down by running his hands back through his spiky hair and taking a deep breath.

"I'll figure something out. You can tell everyone to expect development to be starting soon." Alugard regarded him disbelievingly.

"I have just described to you how astronomical the costs are expected to be. I can't begin to fathom a method to obtain the funds necessary to start development. Building the few small houses we have was already taxing the limits of our funding and unity. I would say we are closer to being pardoned by the Cloud than building sixty-odd houses." Naruto sighed at the firm rebuke. For the short time he had known Alugard the best way to describe him was 'gruff but fair'. Naruto knew he wasn't saying this out of vindictiveness and thus endeavored to give a reassuring smile to the grey-haired man.

"Just tell them. It's my responsibility to think of something, and I'll find a way to pull through," Naruto assured him with a haggard grin. He didn't know how, but he would make sure these people had a good place to call home.

* * *

As Naruto opened his eyes he felt a familiar pain begin to permeate through his head. The way in which it started was just the beginnings of an all too typical headache for him as of late. However, at one point he felt pulsating waves of pain so sharp he thought he was being physically assaulted with a blade. He did his best to lay as still as possible as he clasped his head in between his hands in an effort to will the pain away. Since a few days after his arrival at Beacon he had been victim to mild headaches and pain, but this felt more like an attack from within than mental fatigue.

Then as quickly as it came it disappeared like foam on the waves, leaving only a residual heat radiating through his body. Naruto was face to face with an emotion he had not felt in quite some time- fear. Sure, he had been nervous, maybe even apprehensive since he had started playing a presumed cat and mouse with Ozpin, but those were different creatures entirely from the beast he now found himself face to face with.

The simple fact had been that there was nothing he need fear. Over the years in the Elemental Nations he had come to terms with the fact that he was as close to a demi-god as one could ever reasonably hope to be. He rebelled against the notion at first and struggled to maintain the lingering vestiges of the simple idea that he was just human. Even such a meager goal as that managed to prove out of his reach. He wasn't exactly sure when he had started to mentally distance himself from humanity, but he had. Experiencing fear for the first time in years was a jarring experience.

 _Maybe it was a mistake to come here_. Naruto thought to himself as the heat began to slowly recede from the entirety of his body, but with its absence the familiar headache returned. He remained still for another few minutes until he was completely sure the attack had passed. The familiar dull pain in his head was almost welcome when he compared it to what he had just experienced.

 _Naruto-boy, maybe it is time for you to see a doctor. I'm sure the school has one somewhere._ Gyūki suggested.

 _No point. If this was a physical malady than my chakra would have taken care of it. Whatever is happening is going on inside the kid's head. Probably caused by having so many brats around biting at his heels._ Kurama reasoned gruffly from his position at Naruto's legs. He had actually slept in their dorm for the first time in awhile. Gyūki was less than enthused by his analysis.

 _If anything, it is because you interacted with too few people. If you hadn-_

 _Kami, let it rest already, both of you._ Naruto interrupted the two with an exasperated groan from the all-too-familiar argument. He once again found himself leaning towards Kurama's interpretation of events. The years leading up to his exile he had practically been the kage of a sizable village, meaning he had gotten used to the exhaustion he felt talking with people. He would be overreaching to say that he had gotten used to talking to people, but the fatigue it caused him back then was certainly different than what was happening now.

He felt that Remnant should have been a relaxing vacation compared to what he was used to. Naruto had been trying to figure out what exactly was causing his headaches with a sort of casual curiosity in his spare time. However, now he was trying to contort his thoughts into some sort of key that would unlock an answer with a much greater sense of urgency. Fear was not something he was accustomed to feeling, and a fear he could do nothing about was even more foreign than that.

After a few minutes of mental gymnastics, Naruto resigned himself with a frustrated grunt and gave up. Intrapersonal struggles were not his forte in any sense of the word. Gaara had once lauded him for his interpersonal skills, but Naruto had always attributed that to his rather simplistic view of the world at the time. Whereas others were often bogged down by fear and indecision, Naruto had simply charged forward until he solved the problem at hand. Gaara had told him that helped free those in his presence from their indecision, but the skill did nothing for him presently.

He couldn't run this problem down, he couldn't beat it into submission, nor could he just continue trying or training until the answer gave way. Whenever it came to quandaries of the mind or heart, Naruto found himself equipped with woefully inadequate tools. He forcibly removed himself from his self-deprecation by swinging his legs lithely off of his bed, quietly removing himself from the covers as he stood up. Kurama was disturbed from his position but settled back down without so much as a sideways glance at him. A quick look at the digital clock on his nightstand informed him that it was barely past four in the morning.

Naruto gave a silent complaint as he opened a drawer to find his orange training sweats and black shirt. The slow and meandering process could best be described as absent-minded, his spiky hair popping out of the top of his shirt as he pulled it down. As his shirt was dragged past his face he noticed his scroll had lit up next to his alarm clock with a mail icon displayed brightly on the screen.

"Who the hell is even awake right now?" Naruto groused. Figuring out what caused the attack he just experienced was easily at the top of his priority list, and was ultimately why the arrival of a message at this time annoyed him. Years of experience with receiving unexpected mail and missives had left him with a sixth sense for when they were going to be benign, or a pain in the ass. The fact that his id desired nothing more than to curse up a storm was a clear indicator of what type this one was going to be. He begrudgingly trudged forward a singular step to reach his nightstand and opened the scroll message.

" _Naruto, I was thinking about our conversation last evening and just so happened to stumble across an epiphany. Knowing that you have had previous experience on missions from your village has led me to the conclusion that it would be beneficial for the students to hear a lesson from someone who they respect and who is their own age,"_ the letter formatted message clearly written by Ozpin began. Naruto had to restrain the early bubblings of anger as Ozpin's immediate pursual of the terms of their deal came at a perfectly inopportune time. After he had calmed himself down he reluctantly continued to read.

" _That being said, it is already Friday and I think today would be an opportune time for you to impart the knowledge of your worldly experience, so the students can have the weekend to digest. I have informed Professor Port that you will be ending his class with a presentation of your choosing. Know that this presentation is, of course, optional, and you are well within your rights to refuse."_ The message concluded in a way that felt oddly unfinished. Naruto scolded himself and kicked the leg of his bed in frustration.

He had revealed too much of his hand and Ozpin was exploiting it. Naruto had thought that admitting he had no substantial interest in finding out what was below the school would reassure Ozpin that he wasn't an enemy. Judging by the way Ozpin had reacted at the time, it had accomplished his goal, but obviously at a price. Ozpin knew now more than ever the lengths he was willing to go to try and keep his past hidden. Naruto had hoped this would have bought him some breathing room, but it felt more like he had replaced one type of trouble with another.

The original goal he had upon entering Beacon was to remain as anonymous as possible. Obviously the degree to which he fell short of that goal was impressive in and of itself. Naruto then judged that he couldn't risk Ozpin poking around and sought to check him with the information about the chakra in the basement. Clearly Naruto had emerged victorious as far as restricting the headmaster's ability to look into him. What wasn't as clear originally was that the maneuvering he did to put Ozpin in check had ultimately put a collar on himself whilst handing the headmaster the leash.

Naruto had never been the best at scheming or planning. One could easily say that he much preferred to tackle his problems head on and honestly. When he worked on the orders of people he trusted or followed the plans and machinations of his friends, that quality didn't cause him any trouble. The problems came when he began to strike out on his own and people sought to manipulate his trusting and straightforward nature. Because of that, Naruto had developed the ability to understand the plans of others. Even without that skill the headmaster was making no attempt to conceal the 'hidden' message that he was actually saying.

"Tie-down statements… Shikamaru always told me to use more tie-down statements," Naruto chastised himself as he quietly opened the door and left his dorm. Naruto originally meant that he'd be an ambient force of good for the students of Beacon and he meant it. That didn't change the fact that he didn't specify the clarifying word of 'ambient' or come to specific terms of how much he would have to help to consider keeping his end of the deal. That carelessness left him open to Ozpin's threat, that hardly even bothered with a veil.

"Help the students as I say or I'll consider our deal broken," Naruto voiced Ozpin's implied message out loud as if trying to find a way around it. If this was just a normal request to teach the students some combat tactics or fighting techniques then there wouldn't be any problem. What made the situation turn problematic was that he was expected to give a presentation based on his experiences on missions.

It was safe to assume the entire point of the lack of forewarning was so that he couldn't prepare a believable lie, or so he chose a story that revealed some form of information which Ozpin could use to extrapolate his origins from. Naruto continued walking as he looked for an answer that satisfied both conditions; that he teach the students something useful while not giving away anything that could remotely tie back to the Elemental Nations.

On a whole, Naruto was getting pretty damn sick of being on the backfoot. He had enough power to wipe out this entire school fifty times over, but here he was dancing to the tune of some old man's fiddle. Naruto had made his desires too transparent and they were being used against him, but in a way that was too insignificant to justify him making a stand or just outright leaving. There was no doubt in his mind that Ozpin was going to continue pushing that line as far as he thought he could get away with, but in doing so Naruto realized the codger had tipped his hand as well.

"He doesn't want me to leave the school," Naruto realized with a smug smile. Finally, he had something he could work with. Now Naruto didn't know if Ozpin wanted him at the school to try and use his power, because he viewed him as a threat, or some combination of the two. Regardless of Naruto's inability to pin down the headmaster's exact motive, the fact that Ozpin was putting up with a lot more than he should to keep him here revealed the immutable fact that Ozpin wanted him here.

"That could work…" Naruto mumbled to himself as he finally came upon his destination. He opened the door and stepped into one of the largest training rooms in Beacon. Pertinent to his goal was the fact that this one included a weight room as well as a track ring. His hope was that engaging in regular physical activity without the use of chakra would help alleviate his headache problem with those endorphin things Sakura had told him about before.

"Well, at least it's the best plan I've thought of so far," he admitted with a chuckle that belied his agitation with himself. Naruto was positive a teenage Shikamaru could outmaneuver the present him in both the battlefield of combat and words. Naruto had never worried about how much smarter his fellow ninja was as much as he had the past few days.

It only took the duration of their short interview together, yet he had managed to reveal enough of his power that Ozpin viewed that he was worth investigation. Not even two full weeks later and he had inadvertently given the old bastard insight into a simple fact that was already being exploited. The fact that he was willing to go through great lengths to keep Ozpin out of his past was put on full display last night. Now the question on both of their minds was how much he would be willing to do to keep it that way.

* * *

"And that, my dear students, is how my actions standardized the 'no three females and one male team' rule here at Beacon. Indeed the machismo I display when taking down grimm is a curse, and ultimately too distracting for the team I was temporarily placed on," Port finished his rather interesting story to his comatose class. Even Weiss had started to struggle with staying attentive during his lectures.

"With that being said we have a special end to the lesson today. One of our very own students will be doing a small end of lesson module. Please come down to the front of the class, Mr. Uzumaki." Port finishing with Naruto's name woke most of the class out of their defunct stupor.

The eyes of the entire class quickly converged on the point where Naruto was sitting with his hands laced behind his head, leaning back in his chair. Pyrrha in particular poked his arm and gave him a questioning look. Without explanation, he stood up slowly and started walking down the stairs towards the presentation area, with all the joy of someone marching to their own grave to the tune of the most bleak of dirges. After what felt like a full minute to traverse forty feet, he eventually made it to center stage below the rows of desks occupied by his classmates.

"Whenever you are ready, Mr. Uzumaki," Professor Port prompted. Naruto sighed and looked up to his class and teammates. With a deep and prolonged breath inward he began.

"As some of you know my name is Naruto Uzumaki. I've been asked to speak today because I have some experience with fieldwork and much of what we'll be doing as huntsmen. Before I came to Beacon I served on a team and carried out missions, much like we'll all be doing sometime soon. The Headmaster wanted me to come up here and impart some knowledge from that experience upon you all." Naruto started off somewhat professionally. "To be honest, short of combat knowledge, I wasn't exactly sure what the hell I could or should try to teach you all." He admitted with a sheepish grin. Muted chuckles were heard across the classroom and he looked to see Nora and Ruby both giving him beaming smiles of encouragement.

"So I eventually figured something out, but I'm going to need a volunteer," Naruto prompted the class. As soon as the words left his lips Ruby's hand shot up into the air before anyone else could react, causing Naruto to chuckle dryly. "All right Ruby, no need to come down." He added as he saw her start to stand up from her desk. "We're going to start this off with some simple scenario training. I'm going to give you a situation. Then, you are going to think of what you'd do and answer any other questions I ask about it. Make sense?" Ruby nodded excitedly. "Alright then…" Naruto trailed off into silence for a few seconds, until a sharp breath marked the beginning of the scenario.

"You and your team have been tasked with an evacuation mission. An outlying village has recently been hit by grimm and your job is to get the villagers out of there safely. The risk of aerial confrontation is too high and your transport could only handle a single nevermore at the most. Because of that, you are dropped off a few miles outside of the village's borders." Ruby nodded again to signal she was keeping up. "You and your team have to battle through a large number of grimm and Yang has taken the worst of it as your designated vanguard. She isn't injured, but is starting to run out of steam. The good news is that the rest of you are still mostly fresh." Yang pouted at the suggestion that her stamina would already have had its limits pushed in the scenario.

"The good news is that when you make it to the village, you find that it appears devoid of grimm. You need to find the villagers and find a way to safely call a transport down for them. What do you do?" Naruto asked openly. Ruby was caught a little bit off guard, yet recovered her composure quickly.

"Well, I'd have us all start looking for survivors!" She answered proudly, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. Naruto was not impressed.

"Let's imagine you told your team to start looking for survivors like that. What I imagine happening is all four of you splitting up to cover as much ground as possible to try and find any survivors as quickly as you can." Ruby nodded her head more shallowly than previously, nervousness transparent in her expression. "Yang gets ambushed by a group of beowolves that were sniffing about a building she was searching. She managed to defeat them, but is now running on fumes at about 5% aura," Naruto informed Ruby who flinched as if she had been physically struck.

"I thought you said the village was devoid of grimm…" Ruby pouted quietly. Naruto firmly shook his head as he stared her down, as if to impress the importance of what he was saying upon her.

"I did not. I said it _appeared_ devoid of grimm. Even if I had said that you should have assessed the possibility of another pack of grimm following the sounds of your previous combat to the village for investigation. The best thing you could have done was either to pair one of your team with Yang and have them search together, or leave one behind to guard Yang so she could recover some aura. By assuming things are just going to go your way you risked the life of your teammate… be careful you don't do that again," Naruto cautioned. Ruby looked downright depressed at this point, which was a stark contrast to the vindication Weiss appeared to wear. Blake seemed to be impressed by the thoroughness of the scenario playing before her, whereas Yang looked to be torn between understanding the necessity of this and wanting to protect her sister. Naruto removed his gaze from Ruby's downcast eyes and addressed the class in its entirety.

"Some of you may find yourselves chastising Ruby for what you view as a simple mistake, others may be thinking they themselves would have done much the same in her shoes. The point of scenarios like these are not to tear down anyone here; it also isn't to praise those who get the right answer. If you are thinking in terms like that then I just hope you aren't the leader of your team." Weiss coughed into her hand and blushed slightly. "The point of this is to make sure that when you find yourself in a situation where you don't know what to do, you can think on your feet and find a way to get everyone home safe. Every mistake you make outside of a mission is one that you hopefully won't make in the field." Naruto finished.

* * *

Ren was eyeing his leader with even more curiosity than the bizarre blonde usually commanded. Ren had found himself taking notes within the first minute of the presently brief interaction between Naruto and Ruby. The action signified that subconsciously he viewed the present Naruto as someone more worthy of attention than Professor Port, of whom he did not ever remotely bother with any form of notes. The fact that a student his own age was commanding such respect from his subconscious put his conscious self on high alert.

"As much as I appreciate the fact that Ruby volunteered, I'm going to use someone else now." Naruto started off while looking around the class. Ren intuited that he would not be asking for a volunteer this time. "Cardin, you're subbing yourself in as leader of team RWBY. The team is in the same condition Ruby left it in, what do you do?" Naruto asked the leader of team CRDL and now leader of the hypothetical CWBY. Cardin thought for a second and then responded with a question.

"What did our team find in its search?" Cardin asked for the information that he would have gleaned. Naruto nodded in affirmation that he was on the right path.

"Throughout all the searches you were unable to find any civilians, but you also didn't find anywhere near enough bodies to account for the population of the village." Cardin gave a slight wince. People had already died in this scenario and there was nothing they could do about it. Sky's face lit up as if he had figured something out, but Cardin wanted to figure it out himself. Naruto eyed the once-bully expectantly.

"I'd guess that the village scouts had seen the grimm attack coming and had evacuated a majority of the town. I'd break us into groups of two, putting myself with Yang so that I could take the brunt of the punishment from the grimm since she is already hurting. I wouldn't want us to travel as a full group in case we were too late to save the villagers if we found them, but splitting up individually would just open us up to being isolated and picked off." Cardin answered as fully as he could. Naruto nodded in such a way that Cardin thought he got the scenario right.

"Sky, you seemed like you had an idea when I asked the question. What would you have done?" Naruto turned his gaze slightly right to Cardin's dark blue-haired teammate.

"If the scouts had the time to inform the village to get people to evacuate, I don't think there would have been bodies in the first place. Evacuating the elderly and children is also slow work if you don't have vehicles to do so." Sky looked embarrassed to give an answer that contradicted his leader. "I'd imagine they tried to flee to a sort of fallout shelter. Usually in small villages outside of the kingdoms they build those deep underground in the town hall or community center. I'd have split into the teams that Cardin suggested, but checked the village for trapdoors that may have been hidden before I moved the search perimeter outside of the village." Naruto was actually smiling by the time Sky finished.

"Perfectly reasoned and exactly what I would have done." Naruto agreed in a congratulatory tone. Sky gave a giddy smile and laughed whereas Cardin matched Ruby's previous depression. "Cardin made the ideal choice in how to split his team and he did it for the right reasons." Naruto addressed the class as a whole again, causing Cardin to perk up slightly. "What do you think caused you to miss the correct answer, Cardin?" Naruto asked the bulky leader. Cardin grabbed his chin in a thinking pose as he pondered for a minute.

"I think it came down to the fact that I didn't know that the villagers had probably dug out a safe zone for emergencies. If I studied more and knew that, I could have made the right decision," Cardin reasoned. Naruto shook his head.

"Everyone needs to remember that it is important to be responsible for deficiencies in your knowledge, like Cardin is. Understanding that better training and preparation could make the difference between a smooth mission and a disaster is a good lesson to take to heart." Naruto praised the CRDL leader, causing him to give a small involuntary smile.

"However, the most important thing Cardin didn't do is tap his team for knowledge. Instead of asking Weiss, Yang, or Blake for any insight they had he took it upon himself as leader to make a decision alone. Leaders need to be able to make snap decisions, but they also must recognize the areas of knowledge they don't possess. Did any of you know to look for a bunker?" Naruto asked as he shifted his gaze to WBY. Blake and Yang both nodded back to him.

"I thought we needed to figure this out ourselves." Cardin added in indignantly. Naruto glared him down with growing agitation.

"In case anyone else didn't get the message when I implied it with Ruby, I will repeat it transparently now. If I call on you, then you are the leader of the team, and I expect you to handle it the exact way you would on the field. Got it?" He asked stonily with an expression that demanded seriousness. Scattered nods and embarrassed shuffling could be seen across the classroom.

 _This doesn't feel natural._ Ren thought to himself with a growing sense of unease, as he watched the classroom with eyes that were practically glued to the NNVR leader. The respect and attention he was receiving from the entire class far outstripped what they would normally give any student; it even exceeded what they gave their very own professor. The sheer magnitude of the force drawing the class into Naruto's lecture was alarming by itself. When you added the fact that it was coming from someone their own age it made things all the more strange.

Part of it seemed to be the fact that the very aura surrounding him had changed. Ren did his best not to use his ability to sense aura around Naruto, chiefly because it was usually blindingly painful. Even so, the usual feeling of an oppressive and untapped power was replaced by a sticky miasma of emotion that seemed to cling to Ren's very bones.

"Nora, you find the trapdoor you are looking for and assemble the rest of NWBY. Fortunately you find a majority of the villagers are safe and unharmed, but they are famished. The problem that you have to deal with is the fact that there are children and elderly with you which would slow down your marching rate if you decided to try and evacuate them to the landing zone. What do you do?" Naruto asked in a serious tone. Nora was beaming and answered almost immediately.

"That's easy! We've already found the people we are looking for, I'd just call for an extraction at the village and hole up in the bunker until it arrives." She answered cheerfully. Naruto's eyes were nothing if not steel at that moment. Ren already knew what Nora had missed, but decided she needed the lesson she was about to get.

"Are you sure about that?" Naruto asked, trying to open a door to her redemption.

"You know it!" She slammed the door shut in his face. Naruto looked almost angry at her attitude and set upon her.

"The transport bullhead is called for the villagers and is attacked by nevermores in the sky, something you should have known would happen because you had to set down miles away from the town for fear of that exact threat. You fly in the armed bullhead in an attempt to save the transport ship, but both ultimately go down. You are now responsible for the death of two pilots as well as any deaths suffered by the villagers as you wait however many days or weeks you need to call for another transport out," Naruto scolded her fiercely. Ren could easily see that he wasn't so much disappointed as legitimately enraged. Nora responded by knocking her forehead with her knuckles and sticking out her tongue in admission she had messed up.

"I'm not that good at that kind of stuff because I have Ren for it. I've never really put much thought into it." Nora admitted with an honest, yet blaise tone that only seemed to drive Naruto's blood pressure higher. In response, their leader attacked ruthlessly in order to hammer his lesson home.

"Relying on your team is an important thing that all of you will have to do on a frequent basis. Although it is good to have members who specialize in one area, you should all strive to have a general knowledge of as many things as you possibly can. Nora, let's say it is our team that is sent on this mission, but Pyrrha and I have to go and accomplish a supplementary goal, leaving you and Ren to complete this leg of the mission on your own," Naruto started. Nora's head bobbed in energetic understanding.

"Ren is incapacitated in a fight with a group of grimm that come into the village and find the bunker, but you manage to get him safely to the bunker and defeat the grimm that attacked. Ren is wounded, unconscious, and his aura exhausted. If he gets medical attention within the next day or so, he'll be fine. The problem is you would have called the evac to their dooms without a second thought. Now in addition to the pilots and villagers you have Ren's blood on your hands and you'll have to live with that the rest of your life," Naruto finished cruelly. Nora froze as the blood drained from her face until she was gaunt and pale. The light disappeared from her eyes as her pupils contracted in pure terror.

"I didn't… It wasn't… I could never live…" Nora stuttered out as her worst nightmares played out in her head. Ren retaliated on behalf of his childhood friend.

"It wouldn't be Nora's fault if that happened. I wouldn't blame her and she shouldn't blame herself," Ren interjected icily to his leader. Naruto simply shrugged in return.

"Whether or not she should or shouldn't doesn't matter and I'm not going to debate it. That doesn't change the fact that she'll spend her whole life wondering if her being smarter, stronger, or better in some other way would have saved your life. Rational or not, she'll dwell on it for years, if not her entire life." Naruto turned his eyes from Ren and addressed the entire class again.

"The point of this whole demonstration was to show you all that every one of you will be placed in situations where you feel you aren't smart enough, strong enough, or even brave enough to succeed. As hunters and huntresses you need to get used to making tough choices, and in some cases even impossible choices. The fact that some of the decisions you are handed will seem impossible, doesn't change the fact it is your job to handle them." Ren couldn't help but shiver. The typically restrained joviality that Naruto possessed was nowhere to be seen. In its place was something akin to a grizzled veteran who had fought in far too many campaigns.

Naruto had always been somewhat aloof and distant in his interactions with his team, that much was undeniable. However, beneath the immediate surface of his actions it was always obvious there was a sort of warmth that it felt like he was actively restraining. Ren couldn't quite understand what was possessing the blonde to restrain himself from his apparent good nature.

Because of that, Ren didn't necessarily trust his leader, but he knew that Naruto was a person who would put himself at risk to help others. However, the imposing presence of the Naruto that currently stood far below him managed to make Ren feel small. Just like there was no doubt in his mind that the normal Naruto would save anyone he was able, Ren had no doubts the persona before him would stop at nothing to make sure everyone knew how to save themselves.

The class grew so silent a passerby might have mistaken it for being empty. After letting the silence hang for a time Ruby spoke up. "That isn't good enough. You can't just say people are going to die and there is nothing we can do about it! There has to be something we can do!" Ruby started to shout in frustrated disbelief.

"Now Ms. Rose… What Mr. Uzumaki says is cold, but true. As hunters and huntresses you will be faced wi-" Professor Port started before he was interrupted.

"No!" Ruby demanded in growing dissatisfaction as she bolted up from her seat. "There must be something I can do to save everyone!" She looked pleadingly to Professor Port. Naruto scoffed in what sounded like grim amusement.

"There is, but I can't say it is any better than the alternative." Naruto chuckled two rough staccatoed syllables.

"I'd do anything! I became a huntress to save everyone! I don't want to settle for anything less." Ruby stated firmly. Ren noticed the smallest of twitches that pulled at the corner of Naruto's mouth as if he was happy, but his eyes flashed with a sadness so intense it felt like he was looking at one who was condemned to eternal suffering.

"Then all you have to do is become so powerful no one can stop you. If you become powerful enough that you can do anything, then you'll never have to make a difficult decision. As long as there exists a force that can overpower you or wear you down then you'll have to be prepared to make a choice when the time comes." Ruby deflated as she listlessly lowered herself back to her chair, the entire interaction appearing to have taxed her very being.

The rest of the class reacted in a pretty similar fashion. Many had been hoping for some form of absolution after Naruto had said there was an alternative, a method by which they would not have to lose anything or anyone. When Naruto had suggested to become the strongest, the class had taken it for what it must have been; a reminder that there was only so much they could do, that loss was inevitable.

That interpretation was the only one that made any modicum of sense, yet Ren couldn't help but feel that wasn't what Naruto meant. That idea relentlessly niggled at the back of his mind as an uncomfortable silence set over the room. Ren shook his head to try and banish the thought from his mind.

"Thank you for your presentation Mr. Uzumaki. It unfortunately appears that is all the time we have left, but fear not! Next lesson I shall tell you the tale of the time I tangled the terrible king taijitu." Professor Port's voice boomed out needlessly over the silent class. Naruto started walking back to their team without so much as a word. What Ren observed next was something he'd be spending days puzzling over tirelessly.

As Naruto walked back to his team his expression visibly softened. That was something that his entire team noticed, a change that helped put Nora at ease. What wasn't as obvious was how Naruto's very aura changed back to normal, the familiar overwhelming power laced with warmth was comfortable enough to swaddle Ren to sleep in comparison.

"You guys ready to go grab some lunch? I'm starving!" Naruto exclaimed with a grin as Kurama resumed his normal position curled around his shoulders. Nora returned the grin and gave an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Ren wasn't anywhere near as surprised to see his previously inconsolable friend do a one-eighty. Nora was surprisingly influenced by the atmosphere directed at her. She could maintain a near blissful happiness regardless of the mood of those around her. However, if any feelings of disappointment or anger were pointed directly at her she'd crumble. Thankfully, she was also very adept at building herself back up once any negativity directed at her had dissipated.

"I'm starving! Ren wouldn't make me pancakes this morning so I didn't even have breakfast!" Nora complained pointedly while glaring at Ren. He knew her well enough to know that the hostility was completely serious for having been denied her obsession.

"I just made them yesterday and they aren't healthy. Maybe if you ate healthier for your other meals I would make them for you more often." Ren gave a small smile that was more of a slight upturning of the corners of his mouth as they started walking. Nora gasped and pointed at him with dramatic aplomb.

"You fiend! How dare you use the majesty of pancakes to blackmail me into your tea drinking, salad eating, meditating lifestyle!" Ren chortled absently, chiefly due to the fact he was preoccupied by Naruto.

Ren was putting up with the pain that looking into Naruto's aura usually caused to try and get a closer look than he ever had before. Frankly, calling it painful wasn't exactly a proper description of what Ren felt as he reached his aura out. The sensation was more that of what he imagined a garden snake would feel like before a dragon. Ren felt so infinitesimally insignificant whenever he reached out to feel Naruto's aura.

There were plenty of machines that could measure and gauge aura, but Ren didn't know of anyone other than himself who could do it. His aura control had been exceptional from the moment it was unlocked. He was somehow able to use his own aura to probe the space around him for anyone else's. Because he was basically pushing out his aura until it bumped into another's, Ren couldn't use it to detect grimm at all. He had quickly found out that the auraless creatures were beyond the scope of his ability.

Ren originally didn't put much thought into the seemingly random talent he had, but as he grew older he learned that it was actually pretty useful. In any spars or actual fights he could tell how much gas his opponent had left in the tank by feeling the strength of their aura. He could control his aura, push it out of his body, sense his aura, and then measure the opponent's strength by the reaction when their aura collided. The whole process was similar to how a warm front and cold front would meet. In that case the result was a simple downpour of rain, and in his case it was just a sensation of scale.

Ren hadn't met a hunter that could control their aura like he could, but that didn't mean they didn't exude their aura. Aura was the manifestation of one's soul, thus it existed outside of the body. The long and short of it was that he could force their auras to meet because anyone with their aura unlocked was always exuding it. From there, he would just compare the strength of their auras.

As his three teammates continued to walk and talk, Ren slowly closed his eyes. Every fiber of his being screamed for his soul's retreat as he began to control his aura with deliberate purpose. The moment he began to willfully control it he felt Naruto's aura submerge him, surrounding him on all sides. Ren instantly felt as if his soul was drowning, submerged by the vastness of Naruto's aura. The fact that Nora was walking in between them did nothing to mitigate that fact.

Ren continued to walk forward on a sort of instinctual autopilot, as he tried to rally the remaining vestiges of his will to push his aura deeper. Just trying to keep his aura under his control as he moved it onward felt like trying to move it through a gravity well. After what felt like an hour of sheer force of will, Ren was able to push his aura further, inching it slowly closer to Naruto.

Ren was certain that this power he felt had to be some sort of trick, it was the entire reason he was investigating in the first place. He was so thoroughly convinced it was a trick, but not because he thought Naruto would have some reason to fake such awesome power. The simple reality of it was that it couldn't possibly exist. Naruto projected enough aura to dwarf their team fifty times over. In reality that was just an inaccurate comparison Ren had thought up, a way to try and wrap his head around the ocean of aura that threatened to capsize his dinghy.

Finally, Ren's aura had almost reached Naruto, his goal was finally in sight. After multiple minutes of the most intense trial he had ever undergone. If he pushed his aura deep enough he could gain a more accurate gauge of someone's power. If Naruto's projected power wasn't real, this would be the his best way to confirm it. With one last push, he brushed his aura up against Naruto.

He instantly regretted it.

* * *

Naruto heard it before he saw it. A sharp gasp, followed by an uncharacteristically poor showing of coordination, as a small squeak of a rubber sole losing traction on the polished tile broke through the air. The sound pealed like a small bell for naught but a moment. Then the previous noise was silenced as Naruto could hear a woosh of air signifying somebody falling. Normally, he would have reacted by steadying the offending klutz by simply outstretching his arm. His shinobi reflexes were temporarily halted as the gears of his brain had managed to grind to a complete halt.

 _The boy just probed my chakra_. Kurama had informed his partner just before the trip, essentially throwing the wrench that brought the machinery of Naruto's mind to a complete halt.

 _That's… bad._ Naruto thought lamely. Whenever someone tried to look too deep into Naruto's chakra they would inevitably run into Kurama's; it had been happening since he was a kid. His friends who had done so described it as the personification of bloodlust, describing that it had felt like his chakra itself was trying to attack them. Regardless of how much his fox companion had settled down over the years, the nature of his chakra remained the same.

Naruto and the rest of his team turned to see Ren sprawled flat on his ass. The eyes partially hidden beneath his disarranged bangs displayed a familiar mix of emotions for Naruto; amazement over the power they just found, disbelief that it was possible, and last but not least the fear that came with a person feeling like they existed at his mercy. It was a cocktail of emotions that Naruto had been forced to drink in time and again, but it was an acrid taste most foul. The horror on Ren's face was a reminder of the alienation that came as soon as anyone realized just how deep the well of his power ran, and Naruto hated it.

"Ha! I told you tripping on nothing is normal!" Nora exclaimed victoriously. The declaration was altogether missed by Ren who was staring at Naruto with a sort of primal shock. His fight or flight instinct had tried to kick in, yet was ultimately unable to on the premise that both options were equally absurd. The result was an instinctual paralysis, the body accepting that there was no course of action it could take that would make any feasible difference.

Naruto wordlessly extended his hand with an open and upturned palm. Ren glanced at the offending appendage for split second before returning his eyes to Naruto's own. The gesture Naruto was attempting to go for was clear to Ren even in his rattled state.

 _I'm here to help, not to harm._ Naruto's earnest thoughts echoed in the solace of his own mind. He hoped that the earnestness of that internal plea was reflected in his face. The silence that filled the air was filled with tension wound so tight it threatened to snap at any moment. Unfortunately, it didn't go unnoticed by their team.

"Are you okay?" Pyrrha asked with a nervousness not clearly audible in her voice. Her voice jolted Ren out of his primal haze on instinct as he grabbed Naruto's hand.

"I think I will be." Ren's slow voice and wary tone left the spartan confused and a bit anxious.

"You will be." Naruto assured as he hoisted him back to his feet. Naruto's near absurd obsession with protecting anyone near him had almost made him reveal the hiraishin with Yang, but it was just part of who he was.

"I'll trust you on that." Ren brushed off his uniform as he straightened out the ruffles. Pyrrha had the wherewithal to know something had just happened, though for the life of her she couldn't figure out what that something was. On the other hand, Nora did not have the same capacity for reading subtext.

"Ren tripped on nooothing, Ren tripped on nooothing, I'm not the only one~!" She had been skipping in a circle and teasing in a sing-song voice. Ren gave a sigh, letting go of a bit of tension and revealing the smallest hint of a smile. Naruto cut in in an attempt to bring Nora back to reality, or whatever plane of existence was closest to it for her.

"So Nora, ready for Ren to give you a nice five hour session of meditation lessons? I bet he could even throw in some tea-"

Nora froze at the mention of meditation, and then promptly shouted "Youuuuuu can't make meeeeeeee!" as she bolted down the hall out of sight. The remaining three teammates exchanged knowing looks and continued on their way down the hall.

"So, Naruto, I found your lesson quite thought-provoking, but I must admit I am surprised you agreed to present something like that. May I ask what prompted all that?" Pyrrha asked with a curious expression on her face. She fondly thought back on his previous class antics and had trouble reconciling that image with the grave-looking veteran that he had seemed to transform into. Sure, she knew that he had a very dangerous past, but switching into teaching mode out of the blue? It just didn't seem Naruto-like.

"Well, I-" Naruto was about to try to come up with an answer on the fly when his scroll vibrated. He glanced down and hid his surprised reaction to what he saw. "Sorry guys, I gotta run an errand. You two go grab lunch, we'll talk later." Naruto gave an apologetic smile and headed off in the other direction. _That was convenient timing for me,_ he thought.

 _Be careful this time, kid. Don't go making this Ozpin thing more complicated than it needs to be. Dragging the other brats into this will lead to nothing but more trouble._ Kurama piped up from Naruto's shoulders.

 _Don't worry so much, I'm sure I would have come up with something believable. But we can save that for later, there's been an exciting development._ Naruto showed the message on his scroll to Kurama, who let out a small grumble.

 _Great, more work. I'll be sleeping, thank you._

Naruto chuckled and made his way forward. _What the heck is going through that thick head of his?_

* * *

"You actually want me to train you?" Naruto asked with a lilt of disbelief crossed with a heavier dash of amusement in his voice.

"We all do," Cardin affirmed as the other three members of CRDL nodded, even Sky. Naruto's disbelief only intensified upon seeing that even Sky was on board with this plan; they hadn't exactly parted on the best of terms in Forever Fall.

"How did you even get my scroll details?" Naruto questioned with slight bemusement. He certainly hadn't given it to them, indicating that they must have had a real desire to contact him if they went about digging it up themselves.

"I told a teacher that we wanted to try and get in contact with you to thank you for saving Cardin, but I was too embarrassed to talk to you in front of your team," Dove admitted with a proud smirk, making it fairly obvious his 'embarrassment' was nothing but a gambit.

"Look, you're at a school to be trained by some of the best and brightest in Remnant. I really don't see what you're hoping to gain from this." Cardin tensed slightly after Naruto finished speaking. After a moment, and what was obviously a visible effort to calm himself down, he spoke again.

"The teachers' lessons are more about getting the slowest up to speed than pushing the best higher up. I'm not going to stand here and say we're the best team, but I know we're nowhere near the bottom of the pack either. You're the strongest huntsman here and as much as it pisses me off to admit it, I have to. Fact is, if we want to get better fast then you're our best bet." There were some unenthusiastic nods of shame and guilt from his team as he finished.

"Look, I appreciate the praise and I know you guys want to get better. The reality is that I'm a student just like you, I don't have time t-"

"I hate myself!" Sky cut Naruto off mid-sentence, his fists clenched so hard the whites of his knuckles showed. His fists trembled as he stared at the ground in complete and utter repugnance directed entirely at himself. "I'm a coward and I've always known that. Beacon was supposed to be the place I found my courage and learned to be brave, but the very first time I ran into trouble, I ran away and left my leader for dead! I'm nothing but scum!" Naruto noticed a tear fall to the ground despite his long dark blue hair obfuscating his face. He felt a twinge of guilt that Sky had taken it to heart when Naruto called him scum, despite the fact that he didn't regret saying it.

"Sky, we would have been screwed even if all of you had stayed, we've all told you that." Cardin assured his teammate as the others chimed in their support.

"There were like fifty of those fricking things. You can't beat yourself up for thinking we couldn't handle them," Dove consoled.

"If you had told us we were leaving Cardin behind, we all would have rushed to help him and become ursa delivery food. You letting us run was the only reason we were able to get help," Russel added. Sky thrashed his head back and forth in absolute rejection of what his teammate had said.

"It doesn't matter how it turned out! I ran because I was afraid and got lucky enough to run into someone strong enough to save Cardin! I'm glad that we found Naruto to help us, I really am… and I don't think we could have handled those ursa by ourselves, but I didn't run to save Cardin, I ran to save myself. So please-" Sky ripped his gaze from the floor and turned it to Naruto, eyes brimming with tears of frustration and self-loathing. "Please help train us so I will never hate myself as much as I do right now," he implored Naruto with every ounce of resolve he could muster forth. In the end, the sieging power of his look tore through the walls of Naruto's defenses, Sky's victory being signaled by a long sigh from the blonde shinobi.

"I just can't say no to that, now can I?" Naruto appeared to ask himself aloud. The intended recipient of his words rolled his eyes.

 _You're still soft_. Kurama commented with equal parts amusement and worry.

 _You are making the right choice, Naruto-boy._ Gyūki gave his two cents with joy. Naruto got a headache just thinking of the two bijū launching into another debate. Thankfully, he was spared, as Kurama decided not to pursue an argument and instead decided to pursue sleep.

"You'll seriously help us?" Cardin asked in slight disbelief. Naruto interlaced his fingers and stretched his arms above his head, impressively not disturbing his fox companion in the slightest.

"Yeah I'll help you, but Kami, I don't think you guys know what you're getting yourselves into." Naruto laughed with a sadistic smile. Team CRDL would often reflect on this moment in the future as the turning point of all of their school lives. The simplest way to observe the difference was to note how they viewed Ooblek's class. Until this point, they had often complained how useless History was for huntsmen and had always tried to fit in more combat practice. Within a week they would all appreciate Ooblek's class more than every other student in the school...

Because it represented the one and only reprieve they got from their slave driver's hellish menu of workouts.


	14. Carelessness' Color

_**Greetings and salutations everyone! Welcome to chapter 13 of An Old Fox's New Trick. Motivation just struck me to write this chapter, as such it has been finished far ahead of what I scheduled. The previous chapter received almost universally rave reviews so I'm glad I decided to stick it out for at least a bit longer. Hopefully we'll make it so that the end of this story comes by conclusion, not by cancellation. For now we are taking a break from Naruto's POV, so don't expect to see too much of it. Naruto's motivations and reasoning have been made known at this point. If I was to press forward with more of Naruto's perspective we'd just be looking at more of the same. For now we will be looking at how our protagonist changes this world with his presence as well as the impact it has on the people around him.**_

 _ **With that being said I have caved to request and made a Pa+treon. I do not expect or encourage anyone to pledge, but I have been asked to make sure I have a consistent upload schedule by multiple people who claimed they were willing to pitch in to make that happen. Thus I, Kamorge0, have a Pa+reon for anyone who wishes to support the work. With that being said let us dive into chapter 13 of OFNT.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 13**

 **Carelessness' Color**

A beautiful day was in the process of blessing Beacon Academy. Many of the students had decided to take their weekend of opportunity to visit Vale. Others were catching up on their homework while enjoying the radiant beams and warm weather. A few had even found the nearest tree to collapse next to for a heat-induced snooze. Unfortunately for the members of CRDL, they found themselves to be in none of the aforementioned categories of students.

Getting all of the CRDL boys to agree on anything was certainly a bit of a challenge. Being teenagers, they all had differing opinions and ways of viewing the world. As such, they often had different opinions on what they should be doing. Even if they managed to agree on an objective, coming to a consensus on the means by which to accomplish that objective was an entirely different can of worms. That just made the fact that Naruto had managed to get them to agree on something all the more impressive. The fact that he had done it within ten minutes was borderline unbelievable.

"Okay, this fricking sucks," Dove said as he slowly walked around the track that all of his teammates were currently on.

"Yeah, I'm with Dove on this. This is a bag of d-"

"Less talking, more walking," Naruto cut Russel off as he leaned back, turning the bleachers he was sitting on into an impromptu recliner. Now, simply walking around a track should have been a vacation for a team of huntsmen-in-training, but obviously they weren't just walking. Shukaku enthusiastically rolled after Sky as he struggled to drag his feet forward, small bits of sand sloughing off his body as he continued to trudge on.

All of the CRDL members were coated in a heavy layer of Shukaku's sand as they continued to do laps. Naruto had chosen this sandy method of weight over any other available choices for very specific reasons. Ideally, he would have just used seal-enforced body weights from the Elemental Nations so he could adjust their weight on the fly. The main problem came with trying to explain away how they worked to the prying eye. Thus he invoked a slightly less optimal, but easily more explainable method.

By using his previously shown manipulation of sand, he could test the limits of the CRDL members' strength and endurance without revealing any other facets of his previous life. A method that was undeniably effective, yet earned numerous complaints from those who were subjected to it.

"I better not find any sand in places I don't want sand," Cardin said with a threat in his tone they both knew was empty. Naruto chuckled as Shukaku increased his load, earning a vengeful gaze from Cardin.

"I have complete control of the sand. Once we are done you have my word you will be sand free," Naruto promised as team CRDL continued to march forward like the dead. As the slow procession of the sand-covered team pressed on, Naruto began to question them. "So what kind of formation do you intend to take in missions?" He started off casually. Russel was the first to answer.

"Doesn't that like, depend on the mission and stuff?" He asked through gritted teeth as he struggled to move forward even an inch. Naruto snapped and the body-armor like sand around the mohawked member of CRDL fell harmlessly to the track.

"That's your limit Russel, take a seat," Russel might have managed to grunt out a rejection of his proclaimed limits if he felt remotely capable of walking another step. As things stood, or sat, considering his collapse to the grassy field in the center of the track, Russel couldn't have managed to move another inch with his sand weights. "Aside from your abysmal stamina, you are completely correct that formation is mission dependent." The backhanded compliment did little for Russel's mood.

"Well, give us a scenario then," Cardin demanded agitatedly as he continued to move forward at a reasonable pace. Out of all of his team, Cardin was easily doing the best with his sand weight, despite bearing about thirty-five pounds more than Dove, who was bearing the next most.

"Alright then, let's make it realistic at least. I ask a question, I chose one of you gives me an answer within five seconds. Then whoever gets picked explains why you chose that answer. After that, I'll tell you what's changed and ask you another question, at which point another will answer until we come full circle." Various vocalizations of disquieted approval could be heard from all the CRDL members.

"Great! So Cardin, you find your team on a seek and destroy mission. There are no civilians you need to worry about on this mission as you've been sent to a hotspot with the sole purpose of thinning the herd. You are airdropped into a flatland and immediately chance upon a pack of beowolves. The pack has six beowolves and a singular alpha who take a two-three-two approach with two beowolves on each flank and the alpha leading the other two straight down the center. What formation do you take?" Naruto asked the team leader after setting up the scenario.

"Dove and I would take the front while Russel and Sky take the back in a box formation," Cardin answered between his continued steps. Naruto gestured for him to continue which prompted his memory that he was forgetting something. "I would do that because it would limit the area that they all could attack from." Cardin rationalized. Naruto shook his head with an expression on his face that almost made Cardin feel as if he was tutting at him.

"I've seen you all in combat class so I know what weapons you use and how you use them. Both you and Sky have large and unwieldy two-handed weapons that would completely fall short in a box formation due to the tight proximity you'd have with your teammates. Russel is also pretty useless if he isn't given room to maneuver with those dust daggers of his. Essentially with your plan the only person who is going to be useful is Dove with his sword." Dove gave a what might have been a shit-eating grin if it wasn't disfigured by the effects of his herculean effort to continue moving a growing amount of sand that Shukaku was caking to his body.

"I'll remember that, give us another one." Cardin ordered with obvious traces of agitation. Now it was Naruto's turn to grow agitated.

"You don't get another one. You made the bed for your team and you better hope they can lie in it comfortably. Because of your awful formation the beowolves are easily able to fan out and surround you entirely, taking your previously vacant back with the alpha bearing down alone from the front and two normal beowolves on each other side. Russel, what's your order?" Naruto's voice rang out sharp and commanding, a shift from his normalcy that's trigger was becoming increasingly obvious.

"Being surrounded is a shitshow for us so our best bet would be to try and punch a hole through their encirclement. I'd have Cardin deal with the forward alpha and the left beos by himself while Dove charged the right flank. I'd let him take two fronts because Cardin's big weapon lets him reach further and swing wider, he's also got aura coming out of his ass and ears compared to the rest of us. So if worst comes to worst he'll be a bit banged up, but he'll be fine in the short-term. Dove charging the right beos gives Cardin and Sky more space to work with their big-ass weapons. If I use some of my dust to give my daggers some extra kick then Sky and I can hopefully take out the two beos on the back quick enough that we can fall back and get our shit together." Russel's answer was lengthy, but well thought-out from his seat on the grass. Cardin shot him a withering look as he continued to trudge past him on the track.

"Luckily for you all Russel just managed to yank you from a fire with an impressively well thought out plan. One of the beowolves on the back flank is eliminated and the other is wounded. Cardin has taken some hits, but is currently at about 75% aura while the rest of you are topped off, but thankfully all of the Beowolves are now in front of you due to your quick retreat. What formation do you take Dove?" Naruto directed his gaze towards the light brunette member who had slowed to a snail's pace. Naruto snapped his fingers and the sand lost all form around Dove, falling straight to the ground. "Also you're tapped out, take a seat." Dove plopped unceremoniously to the ground, content with his performance.

"I'd have us split up and take things as they go. Not because I can't think of anything!" Dove added hastily as Naruto's visage soured. "Honestly feels like the best course of action. Russel is best in one on one fights, and Cardin and Sky have huge weapons that don't play nice with others. I'd have us split up so we can each fight at full power without holding back." Dove finished explaining. Naruto couldn't exactly be called enthused, but he didn't look murderous either.

"Sky, the same situation passes to you. Anything you'd do different than Dove on that choice?" Naruto asked the final member of CRDL. Impressively, he was still pushing on at a decent pace despite being the current subject of Shukaku's attention.

"I wouldn't go with a full court press," Sky forced his voice through gritted teeth. Naruto had no idea what the hell that was, but intuited he disagreed with Dove's plan. "I'd have Dove and Cardin press the front while Russel tried to isolate one of the lesser beowolves. Using the reach of my halberd I'd cover Russel to make sure he could keep his one on one with a beowolf until he finished it and could move on to the next, but also cover whatever flank he wasn't on to prevent them from wrapping around on us. Since the mission objective is search and destroy the best thing we can do…" Sky's voice trailed off mid sentence as the physical exertion of his task was obviously getting to him, especially since Shukaku was continually increased his weight steadily.

"The best thing we can do is have Dove and Cardin not worry about defeating the Beowolves, but have them focus on not taking any damage. We don't know how many more grimm we have to kill after this so conserving stamina is much more important than speed." Right as Sky finished a familiar snap signalled the sand weight to drop off his body. What surprised his team was that his reaction to the relief of his burden was an intense rage.

"What the hell!?" Sky bellowed in outrage at a nonplussed Naruto.

"You hit your limits three minutes ago and then you passed them forty seconds ago. If I let you go any longer you're going to injure yourself." The simple and calculated analysis flowed easily from Naruto's lips. Sky was clearly unmoved by the consideration.

"Put the weight back on. I'm not done," Sky seethed at Naruto.

"Dude, relax!" Russel chastised his teammate. "You kicked my ass and you even beat Dove. You've got no reason to flip out."

"I SAID PUT IT BACK ON!" Sky roared, shocking the rest of CRDL into silence. Naruto was the only one of them not surprised. If one was to be frank it would be pretty clear that he didn't experience a modicum of surprise at the outburst. And if one was to look even closer they'd probably see a small trace of joy flitting through his face before it disappeared, as if running its course.

"Sure." Naruto's one syllable reply broke CRD from their stupor.

"Dude! You're gonna kill him!" Russel shouted.

"You are charging straight into self-injury," Dove scolded Sky. Cardin shared his team's mindset on the matter, but stayed silent nonetheless. Instead he brought his consistent pace to a halt and faced Naruto, his eyes demanding explanation. Naruto sighed, realizing there was no way to escape the ire of the concerned teammates without explanation. He launched into a series of questions.

"Dove, what do you think of what Sky is doing right now?"

"I think he is being foolish."

"Partially." Naruto ceded. "But only partially. Why do you think he is doing it Russel?"

"Dumbass must really want to go to the nurse."

"I'm sure he doesn't want to, but has accepted that it will probably happen. Same question to you Cardin." Naruto turned to the CRDL leader who was standing with his arms crossed. Impressively he was holding up his arms with muscle instead of letting his shoulder joints hold the deadweight.

"I think Sky wants to prove something to himself." Cardin's words instantly provoking a shimmer of recognition in Sky's eyes. "Honestly I'm not sure what though." Sky's posture appeared to shrink slightly as he continued to press forward.

"Then how about this Cardin; why do you think he left you for dead?" The entirety of team CRDL tensed as the harsh truth was spoken. Sky had surpassed shivering and seemed to be physically convulsing, though it was possible that was due to forcing himself so far past his limits.

"He knew he couldn't do anything, so why die with me?" Cardin's answer defended his teammate. Naruto wordlessly stood from the bleachers resulting in a small creak from the metal construction and hopped down three rows to the grass beneath. The blonde proceeded to turn his back to them, which the CRDL members didn't particularly understand until they saw him start walking back towards the school. "What the hell!?" Cardin yelled at the shinobi's back.

"You're not going to take this seriously, so why should I waste my time?" Naruto responded plainly. There wasn't anger in his voice, there wasn't disappointment, his voice was colored with the validation of a man who had witnessed exactly what he expected to. The sand fell from Cardin as Shukaku rolled after his jinchuuriki, bouncing slightly as he left the track.

"Hey wait! WAIT!" Cardin shouted as he ran after Naruto, his legs almost giving out and betraying him. Naruto made no effort to maintain his distance from Cardin and thus was quickly caught up to. Cardin grabbed his right shoulder in an effort to stop him from leaving. The instant his hand made contact Cardin felt Naruto's left hand grab his wrist and yank it forward, instantly following up with Naruto's right bracing his forearm as Naruto jerked his upper body forward. The force and momentum flipped the burly ex-bully straight into the air until he was flipped onto his back with a colossal thud.

The impact knocked the wind from Cardin's lungs in an instant, his body struggled to try and force air into the now vacant space in a series of gasps and wheezes. It took Cardin's brain a few moments to realize it was still in communication with his eyes, but when it did he saw Naruto's outstretched hand offering to help him up.

"Sorry, reflex," Naruto apologized succinctly. Cardin shoved the hand away with a grunt and propped himself up. When he tried to stand up his legs gave way, resulting in a graceless backpedal as he struggled to maintain his balance.

"Look, I'm sorry for whatever the hell I did. I'm taking this seriously and I'm not just going to let you walk away like this," Cardin asserted forcefully. Naruto gave a solitary grunt of something resembling a chuckle. The idea of Cardin preventing him from doing anything was nothing short of a joke.

"I don't accept apologies people don't mean," Naruto's cold voice shocked Cardin like being thrust into an ice bath. "And before you double down and say you mean it let me ask you this," Naruto interjected as Cardin was in the process of opening his mouth to speak. "How can you mean an apology when you don't know what you're apologizing for?" Cardin's face took a turn for the grim.

"You're an ass, but you aren't cruel. You only get like this when you think someone did something that endangered others." The look of surprise on Naruto's face was immensely satisfying, but Cardin had more to say. "I'm sorry, because even if I don't know what I did I know it put my team in danger." As Cardin finished the rest of his team had caught up and stood behind their leader, the sand having been released from Sky's body at some point.

Naruto was a little surprised at how harsh he had been, yet more surprising than that was this supposed tell he had. Cardin's read on his motive for walking out was right on the nose. He'd only known the kid for a few weeks and that seemed like a fairly personal motive to be privy too. A quick shake of the head roused him from the thoughts he was starting to sink into.

"Well you're right. I decided to train you lot because Sky meant what he said about changing, and that is something I can respect. But it would be pointless to train all of you if your leader doesn't have the same resolve. So if you don't mind, I'll be on my way n-" Naruto had started to turn but was interrupted by Cardin grabbing the scruff of his shirt. Naruto flinched as he forcibly quashed the instinct to break the hold with a cross-palm strike; the way Cardin's arm was fully extended was really just asking for it. Naruto then resisted the urge to inform his apprehender that he should really bend his elbow a little bit, just in case he had followed his original impulse.

"Look, I'm serious. Just tell me what I did wrong so I can never do it again. If I ever do something similar again I swear on my grandfather's name I won't stop you from walking." Everything from Cardin's voice to his posture were the same; resolute and immovable. Those were two attributes that earned Naruto's respect.

"You lied to spare Sky's feelings," Naruto started, sparking some embarrassed shuffling from the CRDL team. "He just said yesterday that he left you because he was a coward. Sky knows that's what he is and that's why he is ready to break himself to change that. By pretending you don't know the real reason behind his past choices you, as his leader, undermine his justifications for his present resolve. If telling your teammate he made a mistake is too high a price to better your team then I hope you are comfortable with them dying."

It was cruel, it wasn't dressed up, but at that moment it was exactly what CRDL needed to hear. Cardin slowly closed his eyes, as if trying to muster his will before turning his back on Naruto and rounding on Sky.

"Look, Sky. To be honest I don't really give a shit about what you did to me. I don't hold it against you and it honestly doesn't bother me, but that doesn't change the fact that I am your leader. That means regardless of my personal feelings I have to care, because if you pull something like that when it is someone else's life on the line then it's my fault for not stopping it. So you and I are going to keep doing laps until your body breaks. I need to know that you're willing to take pain for this team, and I think you kept going today because you need to know that too." Cardin's voice was filled with command and conviction. The same attributes that had won Naruto over he now looked to use to win his team over. Not as a bully, but as a leader they could respect.

"You're going to send him to the hospital," Russel sounded uncertain as he spoke. The difficulty to reconcile hurting his friend with necessary pain evident on his face.

"And I'll be here to carry him there if I do. I promise to do my best to keep you guys from dying, even if that means having a talk none of us want to have, or putting you through pain none of us want to be in. But when I'm finished doing that, I'm going to be here to help you with whatever you need help with." Sky's face broke into an earnest and watery smile. His face told everyone who looked upon it just how much what Cardin had said meant to him.

"Besides…" Cardin trailed off until a smirk crossed his face. "Team RWBY and team NNVR have been kicking our ass in combat class and that pisses me off. Let's show 'em we birds have talons!" Cardin's voice boomed over his team, sparking some raucous cheers from Dove and Sky while Russel gave a blasting whistle. After they finished psyching themselves up they turned to Naruto.

"What's next?" Dove queried in an at-attention posture, his hands clasped behind his back with his back ramrod straight. Naruto tapped his chin as if thinking until an idea just happened to strike him.

"I believe your leader said 'laps until your bodies break', and I would hate to make plans that usurp your very own leader's authority. So let's add on twenty pounds more than last time and take this from the top!" Naruto shouted with a solitary clap. Team CRDL had never been more in sync as mighty groans left all of their mouths in perfect unison.

Within twenty minutes their muscles hurt so much that they had discovered muscles they didn't even know existed, primarily due to the fact that those muscles now hurt. Each and every member was contemplating if escaping mediocrity was really worth the hell on earth they had knowingly condemned themselves to.

* * *

Ren sat on his bed with crossed legs and baggy eyes while he leaned against the wall. Despite the incredibly apparent fatigue, he had not been able to find an ounce of sleep the night prior. Sleep had not even managed to come close to scraping the top of Ren's priority list in the past twenty-four hours.

Since yesterday's incident in the halls Ren had found that not only sleep, but the comfort of meditation had eluded him. The terror that had gripped his heart had been the primal fear a rabbit would feel before a fox combined with all the helplessness of a single krill presented to a whale. In Ren's world two facts were now absolute; that he had to figure out what to do with the knowledge of Naruto's power, and that his leader could kill him and probably anyone else at the slightest whim. In an attempt to put himself at ease Ren had sought out Professor Goodwitch. He had reached out for her aura to reassure himself that if Naruto's intentions were ever inclined towards evil that he could be stopped.

It had been like comparing the water you would find traversing the hottest of sand dunes to the ocean itself. Professor Goodwitch was the strongest combatant that Beacon had to offer, yet saying her power paled to Naruto's would have been the understatement of the year. Thus Ren had struggled to find some way to deal with the information he had made himself privy to. So far, what he had came up with could be summed up in one word. Nothing.

What do you do when there is a power so great it could destabilize the world as everyone knows it? Ren didn't have the foggiest idea as to the answer of that question and no amount of pondering seemed to get him any closer to finding it. Normally when you noticed a threat you would inform the people able to deal with it, but there was no one who could come close to dealing with the NNVR leader. If he told Ozpin how powerful Naruto was, he was certain the headmaster would still grossly underestimate just how deep the well of Naruto's power ran.

Then, of course, there was the option of doing nothing. Ren didn't necessarily think Naruto was a bad person. Still, that didn't change the fact that Ren also didn't believe that the power to destroy existence should be trusted to someone which he could only claim was 'probably not a bad person'. If his gauge of Naruto's character turned out to be wrong, Ren knew he would always regret not trying to do something.

To act or not to act, the two choices had torn at Ren's mind the entire night and the entire day. Naruto had left early in the morning without any explanation, most likely assuming that they were all asleep. In reality, Ren had been fully awake and had contemplated cornering Naruto for a conversation about exactly what had happened, but ultimately decided his thoughts there too disorganized to attempt such a serious undertaking.

Ren was so lost in thought that despite having his eyes wide open, he did not notice the energetic carrot top making an approach that could in no way be misconstrued as subtle. It took what Nora would describe as 'a soft tap' on his shoulder, courtesy of her fist, for him to realize she was even there. Ren was fairly confident the only reason the 'soft tap' didn't bruise his shoulder was because of his aura.

"Hellllooooo! Earth to Ren?!" Nora's boisterous voice jolted Ren out of his thoughts like a cacophonous symphony.

"Y-yes Nora. What can I do for you?" Ren stuttered out as he tried to arrange his thoughts into some semblance of order. She patted the small space of bed beside him. Getting the hint, Ren scooted over and turned to face her while she hopped on his bed. Nora took a sort of kneeling position, but chose not to sit on her feet. As a result her feet splayed out to either side of her as she sat on the bed. Her skirt may have been dangerously close to lifting, but Ren knew from experience she always wore spats.

"What's wrong?" Nora cut to the chase. Ren stifled a gulp as he tried to calm himself down.

"Nothing Nora, I'm fine." His voice came out relatively clear.

"You're lying." She said with the same cheer and energy she always had. In her mind, she was just stating a fact; she didn't hold it against him. Ren's expression softened as he realized he never stood a chance at lying to Nora to begin with.

"How can you tell?" He asked, without denying her claim. Nora giggled a little and poked him in between the eyes.

"You have your broodier eyes on," she stated matter-of-factly. When Ren arched an eyebrow in question she added, "Your eyes are usually broody, but when you're worried about something they get broodier." Ren chuckled at her usual off-brand analysis. Nora always seemed to understand him, just not in ways he himself understood.

"Well, in this case it appears I am caught," Ren relented with a sigh. Uncharacteristically, he threw his back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. It was the type of position he would find too disrespectful to take when anyone else was talking to him, but he knew Nora didn't care for that sort of thing to begin with.

"One time only offer Renny! I'll let you go free if you tell me what's up." Nora extorted him with a giggle. This probing was above and beyond the seriousness threshold she preferred for her day-to-day life, but she could tell Ren was hurting. As such, she decided to put her slightly more serious face on.

"Nothing you can help me solve. I don't know if anyone can," Ren sighed as he twirled his pink lock of hair around his finger.

"Wow Ren… you're so mysterious and edgy," Nora mocked him with a starstruck fan girl voice. Annoyed, Ren uncrossed his right leg and gave her a quick kick in the knee. It was nowhere near hard enough to do any actual harm, but the intent was loud and clear. "Wow, I got under your skin with just that? Must be a reeeeeally tough problem."

"Tough would be one thing, I'm fairly certain this is impossible," Ren mused aloud. Nora just gave him an over dramatic eye roll accompanied by an over dramatic sigh of exasperation.

"Then you're stupid," Nora stated bluntly. Ren would have kicked her again if he had thought it was worth the effort.

"How do you figure?" He asked absently.

"You just said it was impossible, so why worry about it?" Nora reasoned candidly. She turned away from Ren and draped her legs over the side of the bed, kicking her legs back and forth.

"I have to worry about it. If something goes wrong because I did nothing, I'd blame myself." Ren's calm justification apparently did nothing for Nora.

"Pfffft, that's more stupid than you are! Wait… you actually think that… never mind, you are just more stupid than I thought." Ren's zen monk facade broke as he lunged at a giggling Nora. She quickly vaulted off the bed and retreated to her own bed across the room. "Tooooo slow!"

"Nora! This is serious!" Ren seethed at his redhead partner. Nora treated him to another eye roll to hammer home her feelings on the matter.

"That's why you're being a dummy. You always think bigger deals need bigger solutions, but when a problem is impossible it's one size fits all," Nora lectured.

"Enlighten me." Ren's voice dripped with sarcasm. Fairly done with this conversation, and even more so the problem it was about, he threw himself back onto his bed and spread out to fill the space Nora had vacated.

"Fine!" Nora pouted, clearly dissatisfied with how dismissive Ren was being. "If you and I were surrounded by a thousand, no, a million beowolves, and the only way to escape was to fly away, what would you do?" It was Ren's turn to roll his eyes at his partner.

"Since neither of us can fly I imagine it would be time for me to make my peace and accept fate." Ren basically sighed the last two words out. Nora just stared at him with a 'I can't believe you're not getting this' face that was doing a decent job of making Ren feel like an idiot. Nora was generally very playful, but she was by no means stupid. It took a minute due to the sluggish speed Ren's sleep-deprived brain was operating at, but eventually he understood what she was driving at.

"It appears you are saying since this problem is impossible, any stress I culminate worrying about it is fruitless?"

"Duh!" Ren sighed yet again as he stared at the ceiling, searching for answers.

"What if it has to be worried about? If I can't solve it then it might put a lot of people in danger. It might put you in danger…" Ren's words trailed off as he contemplated a future without Nora. He didn't know just how far he was willing to go to prevent that from happening.

"Uggggh… if you think it is that big a deal then get our fearless leader to help you out," Nora suggested. Ren froze at the mention of their team leader and current source of the entire predicament. A second passed before Ren forced himself to relax, else Nora realize she had struck a nerve.

"I couldn't just dump all this on him. I don't know him." _And I'm not sure I trust him either._ Ren added as a mental footnote.

"I don't know him either, but that doesn't mean I don't KNOW him." Nora's emphasis on the second 'know' was over the top, much like she had been for the majority of the conversation.

"Explain."

"I mean sure, we don't know the guy, especially since he's been hanging back from us ever since he spilled his guts that one night. But that doesn't mean you can't tell what kind of person he is," Nora finished. The silence stretched for quite some time before Ren gestured for her to continue.

"He didn't take his fight with Cardin seriously; he didn't really take anything seriously. The only time he has ever been anything but an aloof goofball is when he cried his eyes out and when whatever is happening means life or death. Not necessarily in that moment, but somewhere down the road." Ren played with the idea she presented for minutes, his hands tugging and twirling the pink lock.

"So you're saying he feels compelled to save people whenever possible, in any way possible?" Ren asked. Nora nodded.

"He was ready to beat Cardin's face into a pancake when he harassed the bunny girl, but Pyrrha says he still rushed to save the bully. When he had to teach that class yesterday he got more mad the less seriously people took it, especially me. As soon as that was over though, he was back to normal." Ren pulled his hand from his hair and clenched his fingers into a tight fist. His grip grew increasingly forceful in a physical manifestation of his attempt to seize mental control of his emotions.

"So it would seem that he holds a fervent desire to preserve the sanctity of life," Ren surmised, to which Nora shrugged.

"I dunno, that's too fancy for me. I just don't think he likes seeing others hurt."

"To that end he is willing to be the one who does the hurting? I guess scraped knees and bruised egos are better than cracked skulls and dead teammates," Ren proceeded to answer his own question. He didn't fault their leader for having that view, he even agreed with the line of thinking in principal. The question that nipped hot at Ren's heels was just how far Naruto took that concept in real life.

He made team RWBY fight a Deathstalker as a squad of three to hammer home a lesson. In reality, that was a type of grimm RWBY shouldn't have even seen until their second year, yet Naruto expected them to handle it a man down. If he was willing to go that far with people he didn't know, how far would he take it with his own team? Ren's worry intensified when he realized the immense power held by someone with such an 'ends justify the means' type of personality.

"And now you've put on your broodiest eyes, ugggggggghhhhhh!" Nora complained with an expressive groan.

"Look Nora, it is a highly volatile problem with far reaching implications. I don't know what to do about it, but it is something too lar-"

"STOOOOOOOP!" Nora melodiously yelled in a sing-song voice. Ren opened his mouth half-tempted to say something, but closed it upon further considering just how much worse things would get if he argued. "You need help, and I know you aren't going to tell me what you need help with because you would have told me already if you were ever going to in the first place." Nora finished her run-on sentence in a single breath. One mighty inhale later and she started again.

"So you are going to go and talk to our fearless leader and make your problem his problem- A-pah-pah-pah!" She cut off Ren who was clearly preparing to speak. "You will do it, such is my royal decree!"

"Nora… you can't just decree something and expect me to do it," Ren scolded her. Nora's smile took a turn for the devious.

"You know I heard they serve coffee in the cafet-"

"I hear and obey!" Ren fell into his familiar role for Nora's queen fantasy. Naruto was the biggest quandary Ren, possibly all of Remnant had ever tackled. He was still convinced that his decisions regarding it could have world-shattering effects. All in all, he was still largely terrified of what might happen, even more so of confronting Naruto about it.

But it wasn't Nora drinking coffee. That simple realization made the task before him feel more manageable.

* * *

"Where have you been?" Pyrrha asked Naruto as he quickly maneuvered his way to his desk. It seemed even Naruto wasn't particularly keen on testing his luck on what would happen if he was late to Professor Goodwitch's class.

"Teaching some punks a lesson," Naruto answered with a grin as he took his seat next to her. Pyrrha noted that his fox companion wasn't with him. Realizing what Naruto had said prompted Pyrrha to then analyze the classroom. It didn't take long for her to realize what was missing.

"Where is Cardin and his team?" Pyrrha asked nervously. Naruto gave a hearty laugh at their mention.

"After what I put them through? Probably struggling to make their way here." Naruto's grin was dashed with a sort of coy glee, but that was something the imperious Pyrrha was to indignant to notice.

"Naruto!" Pyrrha's loud, sharp whisper scolded him. "You can't just hurt people when they do something you don't like!" Naruto's laughs only became increasingly more raucous.

"C'mon Pyr, they were basically _asking_ me for it." Naruto's emphasis on the word asking once again went missed by the simmering spartan. Pyrrha launched into a tirade about leaders upholding the pillars of virtue for their team and all who looked up to them whilst simultaneously addressing the shortcomings of a force-based response to bullies and bad behavior.

What shocked Pyrrha was how liberating the entire experience felt. Her fame and all of the fallout that it brought had reduced her to being shy and timid. The fact that everyone always wanted something from her was what had made Pyrrha so wary over the years. When it came to interacting with others, those who tried to get close to her always had an agenda. What each individual wanted varied from person to person; some wanted to use her fame, others her martial prowess, and many men sought her beauty. Every relationship she'd had for the past four years could be boiled down to one of those three things.

That was what made her so bold as she continued to lecture Naruto. Not only did he not seek anything from her, it seemed like he didn't want anything she had to offer. He didn't recognize her when they first met despite her fame, and he didn't seem to know or care that she was wealthy. As far as beauty went… Naruto gave her no seedy looks, he didn't look at her with any hint of perversion; she had even thought about putting herself in a semi-compromising position once or twice just to see if she could garner a reaction. As far as she could tell, Naruto did not even view her as a girl, but a genderless person who had nothing he need covet.

Pyrrha loved and hated every second of it. Naruto as a person didn't just let her cut loose and be herself. He brought who she truly was forward; a version of herself that she didn't recognize, but felt so much more genuine than the Pyrrha she knew. That was what made lecturing him, even while he continued to laugh, so wonderful.

What she hated was how worthless she felt. Pyrrha was the four time winner of the Mistral Regional Tournament, a combat prodigy, wealthy, the beauteous goddess of victory. All of the those accomplishments, so great that they had ruined every friendship she'd had while tainting any friendship she could have hoped to develop, meant absolutely nothing to him. She had known how to read a combatant from a very young age. As such, Pyrrha knew that when she threw everything she had at Naruto in their spar he had simply been playing around.

His eyes had laughed at her attempts to find what felt like a nonexistent opening. The praise he had lavished on her for her ingenuity and technique was exactly what she had heard a thousand times over, but hearing them as she was repeatedly blown back by his raw power felt absolutely humiliating. Her semblance was nothing before his. Her talent in weaponry and strategy were absolutely inadequate before the dominance of his polarity. The crushing ineptitude the experience left her with was both intoxicating and infuriating at the same time.

"That is why you should always try to be merciful, even to those who do not deserve it," Pyrrha concluded. "Do you understand?"

"Yeah, yeah. Loud and clear," Naruto waved her off dismissively. Pyrrha took his admission, however forced, as a promise she would remind him of should he ever break it.

"And you're not going hurt CRDL any more?" She pressed further. Naruto's mirthful chuckle returned.

"Pretty sure I will hurt them again within the week," Naruto admitted. "When someone is just asking for it and they really need it… C'mon, I just have to give it to them." Naruto's voice sounded more cheeky than adamant, but Pyrrha was on a crusade and too engrossed to notice that. Just as she was about to set upon him yet again with another lecture on how no bully needed violence, Professor Goodwitch's voice pierced through the entire class.

"Everyone take your seats, class has begun." Her calm, domineering voice silenced the class in an instant. A quick perimeter check revealed to Pyrrha that CRDL had still yet to show up. She was just starting to worry about them when they all collectively burst through the door. Upon re-examination the term 'burst' may not have been completely appropriate. The volume of the doors slamming open certainly matched the verb, but the disheveled state in which they hobbled in most certainly did not.

The blue haired one, Sky, she thought his name was, had his right arm draped around Cardin's shoulder in what appeared to be a means to support himself as he walked. The one with the mohawk was similarly positioned with his left arm around the final teammate. The team wordlessly made their way to their desks in an attempt to avoid Professor Goodwitch's ire. Whether they choose poorly or just that their quest was doomed from the start was impossible to know, but Pyrrha had a strong inclination that it was the latter.

"You. Are. Late." Professor Goodwitch projected those three terse syllables with a tone that screamed murder.

"Sorry Professor, we've been training for the past two and a half hours. Getting here was more of a struggle than we thought it would be," Cardin admitted. His two teammates that were currently being propped up looked immensely embarrassed at their apparent inability to walk.

"Then you all should have been more prudent," She chastised the team. "Since you were tardy Mr. Winchester, you have earned yourself first spar of the day against Ms. Nikos." Pyrrha flinched at the prospect of fighting Cardin as he was now. She could clearly tell that he wasn't in any fighting condition after whatever Naruto did to them and she didn't appreciate being used as Professor Goodwitch's instrument of punishment.

"I really don't think I can f-"

"Come down to the arena now Mr. Winchester, Ms. Nikos." Professor Goodwitch overrode Cardin with her commanding voice. Cardin mumbled something under his breath as he dropped his teammate off at his desk before making his way down to the stage. Pyrrha rose from her seat and scooted past Naruto to make it into the aisle. When her legs accidentally brushed up against his own she could swear her heart skipped a beat.

"Combatants, please place your scrolls in the machine," Professor Goodwitch ordered. Pyrrha quickly complied and inserted her scroll into the apparatus. Her picture appeared next to the green bar representing her aura. It took a few seconds for Cardin to dig his scroll out of his pocket, but soon he too had placed it in the apparatus. His face appeared just like Pyrrha's had, but instead of a full bar of green there was a full bar of black. Immediately upon inserting his scroll, warnings started flashing indicating they were not cleared for combat.

Professor Goodwitch leveled Cardin with an intense stare. "It was an incredibly hard workout." He explained in an attempt to absolve himself. As far as attempts go it was incredibly weak, yet Pyrrha sincerely doubted that a strong showing would have garnered him better results.

"You are expected to be prepared when you enter this class Mr. Winchester. I will let you off with a warning this time, but understand that if this happens again you shall receive a failing grade for the day. Please return to your seat." Pyrrha could hear Naruto snickering from his seat. Very quickly it became apparent that Professor Goodwitch was able to hear it as well.

"Mr. Uzumaki, would you please make your way down to be Ms. Nikos' opponent," Professor Goodwitch called out to him. Naruto gave a showboating groan loud enough for the entire class to hear.

"Can you just get me a desk down there? You call me down every class anyways, it would save me a lot of stairs," Naruto begged Professor Goodwitch. The class started to break down into various laughs, giggles, tutting and other noises of amused approval mixed with some disdain for the zoo he constantly degenerated the class into. As far as what category Professor Goodwitch fell into… well, it was fairly obvious.

"Mr. Uzumaki, you will also not be allowed to use your semblance for this bout," Naruto threw up his hands in exasperation as he made his way down to the stage. Apparently, he had decided that discretion was the better part of valor as he made no move to backtalk the professor any further. Naruto stuck his scroll into the machine and turned to face Pyrrha.

"Besides the additional rule that Mr. Uzumaki is not allowed to use his semblance, this shall be a standard match. Are you ready Ms. Nikos?" Pyrrha nodded to the professor.

Then the match shall begin in three, two-"

"I don't get a ready check," Naruto grumbled with a pout.

"One, begin!" Glynda finished her countdown as Pyrrha readied her stance. Normally Pyrrha loved to charge in immediately after a match had started, but in this case she held back. Naruto's posture was completely lax and he seemed entirely disinterested in the spar. Instead of looking at Pyrrha he was staring at the ground, mumbling things she couldn't completely hear. She managed to make out the words 'unfair', 'favoritism', and some disparaging comments about blonde women.

"Naruto?" Pyrrha asked slowly, attempting to provoke some form of acknowledgement. Her blonde leader continued to stare at the ground, mumbling complaints.

"Ms. Nikos, I would recommend attacking him," Professor Goodwitch advised her. For being the professor in charge of supervising the safety of their spar she seemed to be far too interested in the idea of Naruto being attacked. Pyrrha internally groaned at the position she found herself in.

"Here I come, Naruto," she warned her leader. Naruto failed to acknowledge her in any way, seemingly content to continue mumbling nothings into the floor. With growing aggravation Pyrrha morphed Miló into its javelin form and threw it at Naruto's head. To be more precise she intentionally aimed just to the right of his head, only leaving six inches of space between the javelin and his face. Her weapon imbedded itself harmlessly in the ground behind Naruto.

Pyrrha didn't know if Naruto was able to tell she had aimed to miss, or if he truly wasn't paying attention, but as Miló sped past his face Naruto didn't move a muscle besides the ones in his mouth as he continued to mumble at the floor. The man who had so thoroughly bested her in combat continued to show a complete lack of regard towards her as an opponent.

It took Pyrrha a few seconds to recognize that she was presently playing the fool. It wasn't a role she was accustomed to playing, thus recognizing it took several seconds of flabbergasted wonder. When she came to the conclusion that she was being mocked her competitive nature flared. Naruto's semblance had bested her in their spar entirely on its own, yet now he presumed her unworthy of his attention despite being forbidden from using the very thing that defeated her?

Pyrrha could have easily used her semblance to summon her weapon back into her hands. Tactically it was the right decision, but she didn't like to use her semblance in such flashy and overt ways. The subtle manipulation of the battlefield with her semblance was what had earned her the title of 'invincible girl'. Testing the waters, she decided to walk straight past Naruto and to her weapon. As she suspected he did not move to intercept her in any way. Deciding to once again test the rules of whatever game Naruto was playing she swung Miló at his head in a striking arc.

Naruto dropped down onto the floor cross-legged, the javelin flying harmlessly over his head, kissing his hair. As Pyrrha reset her stance he remained sitting, continuing to disregard her. At this point Pyrrha realized the motivations behind these antics were synonymous with how he had approached Cardin the weeks prior. Naruto didn't recognize her as an opponent, he thought he was playing some sort of farcical game.

Pyrrha was mellow-mannered, kind, and thoughtful as a general rule, but seeing the combat prowess she had worked her entire life to develop being mocked lit a darker competitive fire inside her. She didn't want to hurt him, but she would make him recognize her as an equal or superior in martial combat.

Pyrrha morphed Miló into its sword form and slashed down upon her stationary leader. Naruto dodged by falling to the right, as if he was a statue that had been pushed to the side. His body remained in the exact same position it had originally been in, just laying on the ground shifted ninety degrees to Pyrrha's left.

Pyrrha spun so that she was facing the same direction as Naruto and attacked again, bringing down the bottom of her shield to bisect his midsection. The motion left her elbow at a near perfect right angle. Naruto exploited that by using the superior length of his right arm to catch her upper arm, stopping Akoúo̱ before she had built up any momentum.

Naruto finally made an aggressive move. In an unbelievable showing of core strength he twisted his body to create enough force to spin on the floor. In addition, he uncrossed his legs, sticking out his right leg to catch Pyrrha's own. Then, with a forceful yank he pulled on her captured upper arm, forcing her to trip herself over his extended leg. With a terrific thud Pyrrha collapsed on the ground adjacent to Naruto using Akoúo̱ to brace her fall.

"You know, it is surprisingly comfortable down here," Naruto joked with playfully fake earnestness. Pyrrha's normally alacritous brain was experiencing immense difficulty with trying to process what had just happened.

 _Did he just knock me down… while not taking me seriously?_ Pyrrha mulled the impossible thought over in her head. It was his semblance that had bested her, wasn't it? Naruto could not be her superior in martial combat, that was an immutable fact.

"If you do not resume combat you will both receive failing grades for the day," Glynda's icy voice snapped Pyrrha out of her stupor.

"I have managed to subdue my opponent to the ground! You can't fail me for that!" Naruto complained, prompting a familiar laughter from the classroom.

"You are also on the ground Mr. Uzumaki." Professor Goodwitch reminded him while bending her riding crop at an angle that rightly should have made it snap.

"But I am here by choice!" Naruto declared proudly, prompting louder and more derisive laughter from the entire class. A fight with Pyrrha Nikos, the champion prize fighter, was being reduced to a mere circus. At long last Pyrrha had found the challenge she had spent most of her life looking for. Pyrrha came to the conclusion that Naruto could handle her, handle everything about her. As she rose from the ground she made a decision she had not made in years.

It was time for her to go all out.

Using Akoúo̱ to guard her body, she thrust her sword atop her shield into Naruto. As to her prediction he merely rolled out of the way. Not wanting to give him any time to reset, she declined to pull back Miló and reset her own stance, instead choosing to spin so that she could launch her shield like a discus. Naruto once again remained stationary, but this time it was by Pyrrha's design. Akoúo̱ was embedded in the ground to cut off his path of retreat.

Using the momentum of her spin she went for another sweeping strike. When you combined the factors of his laying position preventing movement on the x axis, an obstacle sealing his ability to roll down the y axis, and a sweeping attack to cover a large area in order to prevent any small scale maneuver to narrowly dodge the attack you left no options for your opponent. Pyrrha was confident her attack would connect.

A flash of recognition burned in Naruto's eyes. He snaked his arm under the arc of the oncoming sword while flattening his body as much as he could. Right when the sword passed over his outstretched arm he slapped his palm upward, throwing the blade off course. At first Pyrrha thought that her attack had been entirely thwarted, but something didn't feel right. She had grown incredibly accustomed to the sensation of cutting her blade through someone's aura over the years. That experience told her with absolute certainty that although she was cutting something, it wasn't aura.

"Yeowch!" Naruto gave something of a pained noise as he quickly took to his feet and retreated past the shield, clutching his hand. Despite his efforts, he could not staunch the crimson flow that leaked through the dam he attempted to create with his hand. Through her shock Pyrrha noticed that he didn't seem overly concerned with the fact that he was bleeding. If anything, Pyrrha thought she saw some sort of manic glee glinting in his eyes.

However, his lack of concern was incredibly short-lived. Almost immediately after she had seen the blood she heard a sharp hissing. Her brain immediately tied the sound to some sort of steam, but was quickly dismissed because of the complete lack of sense it made. At least it was, until she noticed the small stream of steam leaking from the covered wound.

"Mr. Uzumaki, are you alright?" Professor Goodwitch asked with genuine concern.

"Yeah, no problems here," Naruto replied. Professor Goodwitch appeared to be unconvinced.

"You sustained a cut on your hand. If your aura is not prot-"

"The cut is already gone, aura took care it of it," Naruto interrupted gruffly, showing a slightly bloodied hand to the Professor. When Pyrrha adjusted her position to inspect it herself she couldn't believe what she saw. Nothing. If the professor was surprised she kept it well concealed. She approached Naruto and held out her open hand. Naruto grumbled, but complied by putting his own hand palm up in hers. After a few moments of inspection, Professor Goodwitch walked back to her previous position.

"The match shall resume as Mr. Uzumaki is still combat capable," she announced vaguely, and Pyrrha understood why. The class probably just assumed the injury he had taken was glancing, making it possible for Naruto to continue in spite of it. In reality there was no injury for him to continue in spite of.

"I'm sorry Pyrrha, but I'm going to have to finish this quickly." Naruto's voice came out low and quiet. Unlike everything he had done before, this was a message meant just for her. Pyrrha couldn't sense aura, no one could, but she felt the essence of Naruto shift dramatically before her.

Gone was any hint of his joking nature, absent were any signs of enjoyment. What had taken its place was a warrior who eyed her with a sober gaze. The Naruto before her was going to take her seriously, that she knew as a fact.

"Here I come." Naruto extended the very warning she had initially given him. Pyrrha dislodged her shield from the ground and readied herself. She made the conscious decision to shift her weight to her back foot, for she knew she was about to be on the defensive. She was immediately proven right as Naruto dashed in, quickly closing the distance.

Naruto led off with a simple telephone punch. Pyrrha subconsciously moved her shield to intercept the bare-handed blow. Before her conscious mind could even ask the question of why he was willing to challenge steel with flesh it was answered. Pyrrha was blown back, her feet skidding on the arena as the muscles in her left arm screamed in agony. Naruto set upon her once more while she was still being knocked back by the force of the first blow.

Seemingly content to rinse and repeat, Naruto once again prepared an overly telegraphed punch. Pyrrha knew that taking another one of those would easily push her out of the ring, and instead of blocking again, sidestepped the punch left while slashing her sword down to where his arm would soon be. Naruto lowered the trajectory of his right fist to increase the time it would take for her sword to connect with his arm. With the tenth of a second he bought himself he torqued his body into a rightward spin, forcibly dragging his arm out of Miló's path.

Utilizing the momentum of the turn he barreled his fist into Akoúo̱ once more. Pyrrha felt her very bones creak as the force of the blow slid her across the floor. Her previously screaming muscles felt as if they were dying. The sheer power of his blows was so great that her aura could not do enough to mitigate them entirely, instead being forced to heal the damage that it could not outright prevent.

Pyrrha cast Akoúo̱ down to the floor. At this time her trusted shield felt like nothing more than a giant target that Naruto was exploiting. His fighting style was so incredibly simple, much unlike the tactical prowess he had shown in taking down the nevermore at their initiation. It was the simplicity of the tactic and the message it implied that set Pyrrha's heart ablaze.

Naruto was challenging her in the most direct way possible with complete confidence. The way in which he attacked her spoke volumes on his thought process. 'I will throw the might of my body against your own and emerge the victor', he seemed to say. Pyrrha had trained to be a warrior her entire life; no one her age was her equal in the way of the sword. Her body itself was a trained, toned weapon used to execute the countless combat maneuvers and techniques that had been drilled into her since she was a little girl.

That didn't stop Naruto from charging her head on with full confidence that he was her physical superior. It was that self-assuredness combined with his previously displayed intense desire to protect that had her very being blazing hot. With a feral grin of pure joy she morphed Miló into its javelin form and took it in both hands. Spear in hand, the primitive part of her nature was ready to hunt a quarry she did not know if she could fell.

"This combat is concluded. Mr. Uzumaki is the winner." Professor Goodwitch's voice washed over Pyrrha like an ice bath. She rounded on the Professor fully prepared to contest the call when she saw it. The screen that displayed their auras showed Naruto's as completely full while Pyrrha's own was blinking in the red.

 _He… he only punched me twice._ Pyrrha's thoughts protested the idea that a mere two punches could do the damage clearly displayed before her. She continued to stand there in stark disbelief until a hand cupped her shoulder from behind.

"It was a good fight Pyrrha. You're even better than I thought you were." Naruto's praise was spoken softly from behind, a private message meant only for her. When she turned to face him she saw pride – just not in the way she might have expected. Any person should have felt proud to best her in combat. No one her age had been able to best her for years; even some full fledged huntsmen had failed to match her.

What made it unbelievable was that the pride Naruto displayed was not directed at himself, but at her. He was genuinely impressed that she had done as well as she had against him, it was shown so clearly on his face. He had never possessed the slightest bit of concern that he might lose to her, just as he had not against Cardin. She might have been miles above Winchester, but in Naruto's eyes they both had the same chance of beating him. None.

 _So strong…_ Pyrrha stared at him in unabashed wonder. Her entire life had been spent trying to become the best warrior she could be. Even though she had not been bested for many years, she still maintained a diligent regimen of physical training, weapon forms, and combat strategy. In defiance of her every attempt to continue moving forward, she could not help but admit that over the years the flame of her warrior passion had burned progressively dimmer with each passing day. She had struggled with trying to find a reason to continue pushing forward when all it did was further alienate her from all those around her.

Before her was not the answer to that question, but its invalidation. Pyrrha's warrior spirit once again burned with the hot fire it had in her youth. No longer did she need to worry about isolating herself from everyone if she continued to walk down her warrior path. Instead, she had something to work towards, someone to compete with. It was readily apparent that Naruto did not view her as an equal in the ring, but she was ready to pour her being into proving him wrong.


	15. To Catch a Cat

_**Greetings and salutations everyone! I seem to recall that I write this series… sometimes. I took a huge break because it took me a long while to figure out how I wanted to write this chapter, but eventually I managed to find a way I was more or less content with. A small reminder to anyone who sees Naruto do anything OOC he lived a very different life after the Fourth Great Ninja War than he did in cannon. I'll be touching up on more of that next chapter, which is already 25% done! Other than that, thank you all for reading and I apologize for the long break. The next chapter should be done within two weeks for your reading pleasure. Please give the story a review; they are the only reason I write this. With that being said, welcome to Chapter 14 of**_ _ **An Old Fox's New Trick**_ _ **.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 14**

 **To Catch a Cat**

 _You were careless._ Gyūki chastised Naruto.

 _I know._

 _She saw you bleed._ Gyūki pressed on.

 _I know._ Naruto replied again with increasing agitation. Part of it was directed at Gyūki for hounding him, but a majority was directed at himself for exposing something so huge, in such a public setting, for such a needless reason as being careless.

 _People with aura don't bleed when they're cut. If they examine it too carefully they'll figure out th-_

 _I know, I know, I know!_ Naruto internally lashed out at the hachibi. He knew exactly how stupid letting Pyrrha slice his hand was. All he needed to have done was use Tendō to force her away. Sure, he would have forfeited the match and probably incurred a stern lecture, but that was nothing new. Ozpin might realize he had lied about needing Kurama to invoke that power, but the headmaster's ability to probe for more information was currently sealed by their deal and his desire to keep Naruto at the school, so revealing that might not have mattered too much.

He could have timed his strike properly so that he only hit the flat of the blade, thus sparing him the injury entirely. There were multiple paths that all would have led to a better outcome, but in the end he hadn't chosen any of them. He chose not to use Tendō because he was greedy and wanted to win, and he mistimed his strike because he was careless.

 _Then I won't beat a dead horse._ Gyūki relented, much to Naruto's gratitude. _I advise you start thinking of a story to explain why your 'aura' doesn't work like everyone else's that is both believable and unprovable._ Naruto grunted an affirmation to the octo-ox. Considering their conversation concluded Gyūki fell silent.

"I'm so stupid," Naruto accidentally chastised himself aloud.

"How?" Ruby's innocent voice reminded Naruto he wasn't exactly at the proper place for quiet introspection. NNVR and RWBY had made somewhat of a tradition out of eating lunch together over the past three weeks. Naruto hadn't really talked to the RWBY girls since shortly after initiation besides Yang, and that was only because she found him at Forever Fall.

"Uhhh…" Naruto struggled to think of a plausible lie to fit the bill. "I was just thinking… thinking how stupid it was that I botched that deflection of Pyrrha's sword. Mistiming that was amateur hour." Naruto rapped his head with his knuckle in self-admonishment.

"You tried to deflect the sword of the best fighter in our grade by slapping it with you bare hand. I don't think anyone other than yourself would have tried something so blatantly foolhardy. The amateur part was attempting it in the first place," Weiss corrected him. Yang put her two cents in with a snort of laughter.

"Pretty sure 'best in the class' got demolished, no aura to full," Yang proceeded to add.

"I heard about that, but I was sure it was just a rumor," Velvet joined in much to Naruto's surprise. He had extended the offer to join them for lunch when they had first met, but she had never taken him up on it until now. Today was actually the first day she had joined the two teams for their lunchtime powwow. "Did you really take down the Invincible Girl by punching her shield?"

"He sure did! That's our leader!" Nora preened over her captain's accomplishment. Pyrrha gave a whimpering groan and buried her head in her arms on the lunch table. "Not that you're not awesome too or anything!" Nora quickly comforted the dejected redhead, patting her on the head. Weiss took it upon herself to be indignified in the spartan's place.

"Any lugabout could slam their fist into a shield. Naruto had no technical finesse in his fighting style." Weiss criticized the spiky blonde who chose to merely roll his eyes in response.

"I disagree," Blake chimed in. "You could argue he used his careless attitude as a tool to throw his opponent off guard. Once she recklessly committed to an attack he used the openings she left to force her to the ground using incredibly minimal force. Naruto only started using forceful methods after Professor Goodwitch paused the match."

"What was up with that anywho?" Nora asked curiously to the mop of red hair protruding from Pyrrha's arms, the rest of her face completely concealed.

"Glynda got worried that Pyrrha's attack was enough to cut straight through my aura. I guess she figured that slapping an oncoming sword would only make it more likely my aura wouldn't hold out." Naruto gave a halfhearted shrug. The reasoning was sound enough that it managed to tide over most everyone's curiosity.

"So you weren't injured?" Blake asked probingly.

"Nah, I definitely botched it, but not bad enough that it went through my aura. I gotta admit it looked pretty close though." Naruto grinned as he lied through his teeth. The only one that should have been able to confirm that was a lie was Glynda and possibly Pyrrha.

After his partner had managed to cut him, there had been a brief moment where the blood leaked to the back of the hand he was using to conceal the wound. Even though the wound sealed up almost instantly and he managed to wipe off the remaining blood to his uninjured hand, there was still a discernable moment where Goodwitch could have seen it if she had been paying attention. After that, Naruto just fought with his fists closed until the fight was over and he was able to clean himself up. As far as he could tell, there was no way anyone should have been able to see what had happened besides those on the arena floor.

"Still, that's incredibly impressive. Everyone at Beacon assumed that Pyrrha would be the strongest in her year." Velvet's assessment provoked another pained groan from Pyrrha. She may have been over the moon to find someone to compete against, but that didn't mitigate the embarrassment she felt from falling short of the expectations everyone held for her.

"It's just a difference in experience between us," Naruto defended his partner. Noticing that Weiss was about to speak he added, "Pyrrha has probably trained the most out of anyone in our year, but I've already been in the thick of it." Which caused Weiss to deflate.

"You mentioned that you were on a team before you came to Beacon. That is incredibly abnormal." Naruto tensed at Ren's voice before immediately forcing an exasperated smile.

"It was normal where I came from, but everyone here acts like it was some sort of institutionalized child abuse. Is it really that bad?"

"I think it's awesome!" Ruby fist pumped in excitement. "I was nervous at first, but I'm glad I got to come to Beacon early."

"Children's brains aren't fully developed when they are twelve, or even fifteen for that matter." Weiss scoffed, crossing her legs as Ruby began to pout. "I'm not saying you can't handle being a huntress Ruby, it's just that not every person your age who aspires to be a huntsman would be able to handle it."

"That's basically the exact argument that was used by those against it back in my village. I can't say I agree with it."

"It isn't something you can disagree with Naruto, it is a scientific fact." Weiss replied in a tone that could be construed as sympathetic.

"I think people need challenges to grow at any age. If all anyone expects kids to do is 'be kids', then you get a generation of people not prepared for responsibility."

"You speak like you have had first hand experience with that. Did your village really make such drastic changes so quickly?" Ren asked. Naruto maintained his composure, but identified that Ren would have to be dealt with sooner rather than later.

"Our village was the last village that allowed anyone under seventeen to go on real missions. Every other village standardized that age like Beacon has, just without the exceptions." He gestured to the present exception.

"I suppose there are children who are more mature for their age. A standardized age limit that can be bent might be the most appropriate way to approach things." Weiss conceded magnanimously.

"Unfortunately, for something like that you would need some bureaucrat or organization to make a system that decides which people get to be the exceptions." Blake brought Weiss' thought to its necessary practical execution, causing the heiress to deflate.

"Which means that would never happen," Weiss concluded with a sigh. When Nora spoke you could practically see the question mark floating above her head.

"Why not? It can't be that hard to come up with some checklist to figure out what a kid needs to make it as a young huntsman." Ren patted her on the shoulder and shook his head.

"Even if someone could make a screening process that was ninety-nine percent effective, they would be lynched the first time it failed. If the media heard a younger child broke down because of stress, or worse, they would witch hunt whoever was responsible for putting the child in that situation," Ren clued in those confused at the table. Yang had seemed conflicted for the duration of the conversation, but finally she shrugged and nodded.

"I get it. If some politician's lackey said that Ruby was ready to fight grimm when she was twelve and something happened to her, then I'd be on a warpath."

"Children are tricky." Naruto rested his cheek into the palm of his hand as he slouched down, his elbow positioned on the table. "Parents keep wanting to protect them later and later into their lives as time goes on. Sounds fine and reasonable at first; who could argue with 'protect the children'? Turns out that depriving the kids of the ability to take big risks and make big mistakes also deprives them of the opportunity to grow from those mistakes as well. You just end up with a generation of brats who think anything they don't succeed at the first time isn't for them; a generation who has never overcome what felt like an impossible problem, or pushed past any failure born of ineptitude."

Everyone else at the table responded with muted voices and troubled expressions. Even if they didn't agree with his point of view it wasn't easy to argue against. "Wow Whiskers, way to use your grown up words," Yang teased, in no small part to break past the awkward silence. Naruto gave a short and wistful syllable of laughter.

"I was basically the poster child for the old way of doing things during the debate. Since my village was the only one that wanted to keep things the way that they were, I got called up to give a speech. I wasn't exactly one for public speaking so I spent weeks trying to memorize the damn thing so I wouldn't make a fool of myself. Guess I still remember part of it after all this time…" A small, wistful smile grew on Naruto's face as his eyes stared off into space. Within a few moments he realized how he looked and quickly regained his composure before any more probing questions, accidental or intentional, could be asked.

"Anyways, I'm going to go get some of this homework done during the free period. I'm sure if I don't finish Ooblek's homework Glynda will end up making me fight blindfolded next," Naruto complained. Despite an atmosphere that was still somewhat tense he managed to drag some laughter out of the group. Their mirth arose partially from the ridiculousness of the corollary, but mainly because it was all too easy to see Professor Goodwitch doing just that.

"We probably should get going too. Weiss wants to take a trip to Vale to spy on the arrivals for the Vytal Festival," Yang said. Ruby looked absolutely ecstatic and even Weiss forgot to offer up a denial for a moment.

"I don't want to spy on them!" Weiss claimed to no one's belief. Naruto smiled as he watched the girls excitedly talk back and forth, with the exception of Blake who seemed to be doing her best to stay cool. Even then a smile played across her lips when she thought others weren't looking.

"Well, I'm off to make sure I avoid Glynda's wrath," Naruto swung his legs out from under the table.

"Why do you call Professor Goodwitch by her first name?" Pyrrha asked as Naruto rose to his feet. A grin crossed his face as he replied.

"I mean when a lady is making so many excuses to spend time with you it makes it obvious that she has an agenda. I figured calling her by her name would make her happy enough to lay off a bit, but for some reason it only seems to make her chase me harder. Women…" Naruto sighed. Weiss groaned and took Pyrrha's previous position, burying her head in the table while everyone else laughed.

Naruto turned and started to walk out of the lunch room. When he was a decent distance away from the table Velvet abruptly jolted up from her seat. With the way she quickly took after Naruto it was hard to tell if she was even making an attempt to be subtle. Her relaxed and slightly slouched posture made it look like she was just walking through the room, but the double time tempo of her steps gave a comical look to the bunny girl's fast walk.

"N-Naruto?" Velvet's inherent shyness immediately threatened to overpower her summoned bravery.

"Hey Velvet, what's up?" Naruto asked as he turned around. They had made it out of the lunchroom and were standing in the hallway immediately outside of it.

"I w-was just w-wondering if you wanted to do homework together in the library?" She barely managed to say. Naruto really had no intention of doing his homework himself. He did, rather it was that he didn't have any intention of turning it in. It wouldn't do for his grades to be too high. He wasn't trying to set any records here.

 _There is no purpose in being here if you are going to avoid everyone who is trying to be your friend._ Gyūki gruffly rebuked him.

 _Cut me some slack. I just started training Cardin's team. That's way more personal interaction than I'm used to already._ Naruto argued. Gyūki's scoff gave a clear picture of his opinion on that.

 _You're training them, not trusting them. If I'd known separating you from your Maelstrom shinobis would have undone all the progress you'd made with them I'd have treated those kages to a bijūdama back then._ Naruto internally groaned at the familiar treatment. Gyūki had been against the way he lived his life for decades and had no reservation in expressing that. The hachibi had what seemed like a never ending supply of complaints when it came to Naruto's developed appreciation of solitude.

 _Kami, if I knew you'd nag me this much I'd have asked for the bijūdama myself._ Naruto shot back as Gyūki went silent. Naruto zoned back into reality to see Velvet looking at him with a growing sense of anticipation.

"Or, you know, if you'd prefer to work alone that's fine too. I just thought it'd be nice to–"

"Having someone to do homework with sounds great Velvet. Maybe you could help me out with grimm studies? With the amount of homework Port assigns you'd think he actually believed that he taught us about grimm in storytelling 101." Naruto's complaint solicited a smile and giggle from Velvet.

"Fox, my teammate," Velvet specified upon seeing Naruto's quizzical look, "always complained about Professor Port so you're in luck. I ended up reducing that entire class to bullet points just so that he would study."

"I'll take it. The less time I spend thinking about Port's class, the better." They both chuckled, thinking back on their experiences with the grandiose, walrus-mustached man.

Naruto interrupted their amusement by bringing a flat palm to his forehead. Working out in the caves would have to wait. "Actually, I can't do it today. I set up a training session with Cardinal for the afternoon."

"You're training _Cardinal_?" Velvet exclaimed in bewilderment. "When you helped me out that one time in the lunchroom, I didn't get the impression that you wanted to spend any more time with Cardin than you had to. What changed?"

"Well, they may still be a bunch of idiots- scratch that, they are definitely still a bunch of idiots, but the things they've gone through recently have taken their spinning wheels and given them some traction. Their hearts are in the right place, and I'm gonna help fill what's missing in the brains and brawn department." Naruto air-jabbed a thumb at himself during the last sentence. Velvet had a hard time picturing Cardin as anything but the racist bully from a few weeks back, but if anyone could bring about a 180° change in a person, she believed that it would be Naruto.

"So, could we save the study session for tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow it is," Velvet beamed at him. "Let's meet in the library after breakfast." Velvet internally jumped for joy. It was the first time she had asked a boy to do anything in a pair with her, aside from her male teammates, and although she knew it was nothing close to a date, she felt a little prouder and more sure of herself.

If someone were to glance at Velvet as the two parted ways for the day, they would have seen the girl almost bouncing as she walked, true to her faunus nature.

* * *

"Alright, I'm done," Naruto exhaled as the tension left his body, his pen clattering to the desk as his hand seemingly lacked the energy to continue holding it. He leaned back in his chair and wiped the fatigue away from his eyes. After four hours of diligent studying, Naruto had finally finished the backlog of homework he had left for himself.

"Already?" Velvet asked in surprise. She was fairly certain the pile of homework he had brought with him would have taken at least another hour. Naruto gave an exhausted chuckle.

"I got really used to doing paperwork back where I came from. All these assignments Port gave are basically just asking me to fill in the blank or describe what something is. Not really all that different from paperwork," Naruto explained. Velvet wondered why a seventeen-year-old would be so versed in paperwork that he finished an hour earlier than she expected, but decided to let it go as yet another mystery.

Velvet had just recently summoned the entirety of her courage to actually sit with Naruto and his friends at lunch. Despite having received an open invitation to join them, she still hadn't been unduly keen on the idea of conversing with one person she had just started getting to know and seven complete strangers. But it turned out a girl could only giggle at her phone so many times before her friend would get curious as to the reason why. After Coco had coerced her to talk to him in person under threat of having her phone stolen, Velvet had agreed. Velvet gave an involuntary shudder as she thought of what Coco had said. Her leader stated that she would 'send a text that would most definitely get the ball rolling', a prospect the details of which Velvet was too frightened to even leave to her imagination.

"It's pretty difficult to imagine you with an office job." Velvet's feet swayed back and forth beneath the table with restless energy. Naruto waved the very idea of him wanting to do an office job away as he shook his head.

"Difficult to imagine because I didn't exactly sign up for it. I just did my job and somehow wound up responsible for a… team," Naruto finished after a short delay.

"So you did lead another team before coming to Beacon?" Velvet was simultaneously surprised, yet not. Leading a team before attending a huntsman school was an anomaly at best, but the confidence he had in leading others as well as in his own actions made it seem all the more probable.

"I was more of a mentor than a leader. I taught them the skills I thought they would need in the field, but I couldn't actually join them." With those words the atmosphere shifted drastically. Velvet felt as if a dark cloud had physically descended upon them as her breath caught in the back of her throat.

Velvet had always been fairly intuitive when it came to recognizing the emotions of other people due to her faunus heritage. That wasn't to say that she had gained some sort of instinctive or animalistic sense for it due to being a faunus, but rather it was through being a faunus that helped her learn to read the room and the people in it, as it were. Anti-faunus sentiment was like a roller coaster; sometimes something radical came up on the news and prejudice towards the faunus became a cultural norm, but when some faunus hadn't committed some crime to make headlines, most of the casual racists simmered down and adopted a 'live and let live' philosophy after a while. That wasn't to say there weren't people who spent day in and day out hating her and her kind, but at least where she grew up they were few and far between.

Not few enough as it had turned out. When having ears on top of your head instead of on the side was enough to set some on a warpath, you learned your way around a majority of negative emotions, especially those that could lead to violence. Because of that, she knew the haze that had descended upon them was regret. More than that, Velvet's senses went as far as to divine the sharp intensity of self-loathing.

Although Velvet wanted to know exactly what could have caused such an overflowing fount of emotion, she knew better than to ask. Anything that could cause emotions to outpour in this magnitude was something best left unmolested. If Naruto ever wanted to tell her, then she would be ready to listen. With that in mind, she quickly moved to change the subject.

"Your team seems to be close to team RWBY. Did some of you know each other before you came to school?" Naruto took a few seconds before managing to shake his head and give a clearly forced grin. Whenever Naruto smiled, Velvet saw the soul of a rogue troublemaker with the heart of a saint, but all she saw in that toothy grin now was emptiness.

"They just kind of latched together after initiation. We all managed to hit the ruins around the same time when we were attacked by a nevermore and a deathstalker. Just so happens I divided up the teams into the teams we'd end up having to take care of the grimm, and from there we got Team Nevermore and Team Deathstalker. Thanks to that, Ozpin decided to keep the name "Nevermore" for our team, in no small part because it saved him from thinking of some color no one's ever heard of with our initials in it." Velvet giggled as Naruto finished exasperatedly.

"He could have called you Team Napier," Velvet suggested.

"Napi-what? What the hell is that?"

"It's kind of a forest shade of green," Velvet clarified.

"There is no way that is an actual color, you made it up," Naruto insisted adamantly. Velvet pulled out her phone and showed him an open web search. Sure enough, napier green was at the top of the results with a brief description.

"Fake, made up, not a real color." Naruto insisted with a pout. Velvet smiled as she felt whatever dark atmosphere she had brought about slowly receding.

"'The Color Conspiracy' by Naruto Uzumaki; a thrilling tale about the world government conspiring to make up a shade of green," Velvet uncharacteristically teased, riling Naruto up as he fired back a retort. As the two bantered back and forth, Velvet observed a nigh on visible sense of relief emanate from her friend, and although she wasn't as good with identifying positive emotions, she sensed as if Naruto felt somehow at peace. It was as if this idle joking around was to him the most decadent of chocolates; something he actively craved but refused to let himself have. Velvet wondered what could have possibly happened that necessitated his aversion to normal conversation.

That wasn't to say Naruto was shy about talking, or didn't enjoy himself when he spent time with the others, but it always felt like he was actively restraining himself. He seemed to most enjoy himself when he just talked and acted thoughtlessly as if taken by an instinctual sense of self long since denied. Further supporting this working theory of hers was how Naruto seemed to crash at seemingly random times. After his trip to Forever Fall any texts he had sent to her were almost done obligatorily.

He had started to completely ignore her until she asked if he had lost his scroll. He had replied with an apology, said that he had been really busy, and resumed messaging her. But ever since then, he had responded listlessly to her texts with responses so generic they could have been sent by his scroll's auto-response. She actually worried that might have been the case until she realized that would involve Naruto knowing how to use an auto-response system. The fact that the first time she texted him he had called her (causing no small amount of panic) only to ask how to respond to a text message made any use of technology seem unlikely, no matter how meager.

The fact that they were spending time together as easily and enjoyably as they were only cemented Velvet's belief in her theory; Naruto was trying to restrain himself from making friends, but only when he remembered it. Seeing it play out felt like some sort of battle between his id seeking human warmth and affection and his superego denying it to determine who he was.

"You there Velvet?" Naruto asked, causing the faunus to jolt upright in her chair. In reality she had stopped responding for almost a minute as she had been lost in her thoughts.

"Sorry, I missed that!" she apologized. "What did you say?"

"I just said the only way Ozpin would know about Napier Green was if they looked up colors that started with 'N' and prayed to find a color that had our initials in it." Naruto repeated his not-a-joke. Just as Velvet was about to respond the library door was burst through by Pyrrha Nikos. The redhead scanned the library right to left until eventually her eyes locked onto Naruto. Pyrrha ran over to them with a look of worry so obvious anyone could have identified it.

"What's going on?" Naruto asked in an authoritative tone. Pyrrha fell into line like a practiced soldier before her commanding officer as she got ready to explain, but to Velvet the difference was almost harrowing. Naruto's entire being had changed within an instant. Everything from the way he spoke those three words to the posture by which he held himself did more than just demand respect, it inspired it. Seeing the goofy blonde able to abandon that part of him with such ease was beyond concerning. Velvet had developed her ability to read emotions out of trauma and necessity, and right now she was certain Naruto's leadership abilities came from the same place.

"Weiss and Blake had some form of disagreement last night. Blake ran away that evening, but did not return. Ruby and her team are going out today to search for her and asked if we would be able to help," Pyrrha finished. Naruto sighed and slowly shook his head; not as to answer in the negative, but as if he thought of this as a mere nuisance.

"Gather Ren and Nora and we'll take the first available bullhead down to Vale together. We'll then divide into two teams using a three-one split; I want you three to stick together while you attempt to locate Blake." Naruto rose from his chair and bowed his head in apology to Velvet. "Sorry, but it looks like we'll have to call this here. I appreciate all of the help you have given me." Naruto thanked her with a sort of stilted formalness so perfectly practiced she could do nothing but nod. With that he brusquely turned towards the exit and strode out of the room with Pyrrha close behind.

"Shouldn't we split up into pairs?" Velvet heard Pyrrha ask hopefully as they moved closer to the exit.

"I have reason to believe this could involve combat. As such, I want the ability to cover the ground as two groups while making sure that you three…" Naruto's voice faded away as the library door shut behind them, leaving Velvet alone at the table they had just been sharing jokes and laughs at. Despite Naruto having just physically left the room, Velvet felt that the Naruto she knew left the moment Pyrrha Nikos had finished speaking. Both personalities seemed so natural to him that it left her wondering who exactly Naruto Uzumaki truly was. As if thrust from her subconscious another question emerged that begged to be answered.

Did he even know himself?

* * *

 _You know, you really haven't been around much recently._ Naruto remarked as Kurama stretched out on the rooftop like a cat. Similarly, Naruto was laying on his back with his hands laced behind his head, staring into the sky.

 _Just because you want to be surrounded by a sea of sniveling brats doesn't mean that_ I _do_. Kurama lazily explained as he continued to stretch even further, eventually resolving to lay on his side with his front and back legs still stretching.

 _I don't even know if I want to be here. Trying to keep the past concealed while being honest is a pain in the ass._ Naruto grumbled through their mental connection. Kurama rolled his eyes at his idiotic host.

 _Then just lie about it. A lot easier to keep something from being found out when you can just make something up. Your method of trying to lead them astray without saying anything that technically isn't true is just as much lying as telling them something that is blatantly false._

 _It is not even close to the same. I haven't lied about anything but my abilities… I think._ Naruto tried to remember if there were any other lies he had told, but mostly he felt he had just allowed misconceptions to perpetuate. Maybe he had helped a few of them along, but still! _It isn't lying if everything I say is true._

 _The definition of lying is to use any spoken or unspoken method in a deliberate attempt to deceive another party. The definition also mentions that intentionally perpetuating a misconception is a form of lying._ Kurama lectured the blonde, much to said blonde's chagrin.

 _Yeah okay, how would you know that?_

 _I flipped through the pink haired one's dictionary that he left in the room. I still don't know all the words of this world._ Kurama offered an explanation. Naruto's face contorted into the sort of stricken disgust an ex-flunkee held for an overachiever.

"You read a dictionary?" Naruto asked out loud in open disbelief.

 _I'm at ligature. Apparently it is something used to bind something together tightly. Also it has something to do with musical slurs, but I don't know what that is yet._ Kurama finished contentedly _._

 _Why not just look up what a slur is?_ Naruto gave up on being abashed and decided to slip back to idle conversation.

 _Well, I am not at the part of the dictionary that contains words that start with 's'. I imagine once I am I will learn what a slur is and finally understand this musical ligature._ Naruto sighed at the fox's reasoning. In some ways, he believed that willingness to wait to understand something through the passage of eventuality was part of being immortal. Kurama had lived for centuries, and as far as they knew would continue to exist for all of eternity. In a way, that explained why he didn't feel the need to understand what a slur was at that instant. He was in the process of reading the dictionary and eventually he would understand; what difference did a few extra days or weeks of knowing what a ligature was matter in the grand scheme of eternity?

 _Has she moved yet?_ Kurama asked with little interest or concern. If anything, his little motivation was inspired by the desire to go back to lazing with nothing to do, as compared to lazing while having a task that needed eventual accomplishment. Naruto sighed and activated his sage mode, the rims of his eyes changed as if painted with orange.

 _Still there with the same person._ Naruto informed Kurama, receiving an audible grunt in response. Finding Blake had actually only taken Naruto mere minutes after their bullhead had touched down. However, he figured that it would be more trouble to try and make up an explanation of why he was able to track her in minutes than it would be to let her run amok for a few hours. At least then when he explained how he found her his planned story of 'I asked around for a few hours and found someone who had seen her' would be a bit more believable. Thus, they had been staking out the building she had holed up in. This was also why Naruto had NNVR split up as he did. In reality, he wasn't worried about combat, but pretending he knew something they didn't make for a convenient excuse.

 _It has been four hours already. Let's just grab the cat and be done with it._ Kurama suggested for what felt like the umpteenth time. He had been suggesting the same thing almost every fifteen minutes for the past two hours, but Naruto felt the need to be cautious. Ren had been like an open flame trying to find some sort of fuse to light in order to blow open the truth about who Naruto was. The way Ren had been acting it was really more like he wasn't sure what Naruto was. A superhuman tracking ability was not a red flag he wanted to taunt his veritable bull of a teammate with.

 _Kami, fine. Let's go._ Naruto finally relented as he sprung up to his feet. Kurama jumped onto his shoulders and took his perch as Naruto made his way to the southern edge of the building. As he reached the edge he simply jumped off of it, landing into the alley that was created by another dingy four story building. Naruto hadn't paid too much attention as he arrived, but the whole area here seemed to be made up of run down apartments or motels. As he continued to walk towards the particular dingy hotel that housed Blake he wondered if she had chosen the area deliberately. Possibly because if her team looked for her it would be harder to brute force search buildings room by room in an area with this much housing.

 _Shouldn't we just get in touch with the cat's team?_ Kurama asked as Naruto pushed open the glass door to the building. Instead of heading directly to the fourth floor he knew she was on, he approached the fat, greasy, balding man wearing a white wifebeater at the front desk. Naruto dismissed his wonder at what kind of business this place did when he saw that his desk had iron bars coming out of it, creating a barrier between them. Naruto assessed it was most likely for the man's protection and not his own, indicating the type of clientele that came here with full clarity.

"Looking for a girl named Blake, she probably checked in here last night," Naruto stated bluntly. The man grunted disinterestedly.

"Lot of girls come through here pal, and not for long. I don't know your Blake, so beat it." The man spit out before picking up an obviously long idle newspaper. Naruto observed that the front page was dated two weeks ago. In other words, the man had just put up his 'screw off' barrier. Naruto decided to change his tactics.

"That's too bad… she's pretty hot." Naruto's voice carried a sly suggestiveness to it as he baited his trap. Luckily his game this time around was fat and slow, in more ways than one it turned out.

"Look kid, I'm sure your girl is gorgeous and all but she ain't here," the man replied without even looking up from his paper. Naruto gave an overplayed sigh just to make sure the man would understand his exasperation. Normally when dealing with someone like this he could stand to be a little more subtle, but the person he was dealing with now was nothing but a rank amatuer. His eyes had stayed glued to the same spot in the paper without even scanning through or flipping a page. This man wanted to get Naruto out of this building with as little fuss as possible, so all he had to do was make a fuss. However, there was more than one way to catch a cat.

"Don't get me wrong, she really is gorgeous, but that wasn't the kind of _hot_ I meant," Naruto emphasized the word hot. Hook, line, and sinker the man's beady eyes shot up from his paper.

"What kind of hot is she then?" he asked, his eyes anxiously darting towards the glass door to examine the street outside. With that, Naruto knew how the rest of this was going to play out; all that was left was to do the playing.

"Unfortunately my friend's beauty led her down a career path well-suited for her to… let's say to utilize it. Now, unfortunately, the Vale Council has taken offense to such utilization and has thusly outlawed it. Even more unfortunate than that is they got a tip-off that she was going to be here," Naruto finished. At this point the man had started to sweat, beads of liquid appearing from his balding head and dripping down his face.

"Yeah, and how would you know th-that?" the man's voice hitched. Naruto stared him dead in the eyes as he went in for the kill.

"Just as people often have need of someone with my friend's beauty, they also find that they need someone who can locate things. Now, I may be handsome, but I'm guessing you know which of those two I am at this point, right friend?" Naruto asked, leading the man where he needed him. The man stared at him with glowering hostility for a moment before nodding his head. "Well then, since we're both being honest at this point I can tell you that I also tracked her down here and was going to be the one to tip Vale's finest off…" Naruto trailed off for a moment to give the man time to process what he'd said.

"But!" Naruto started loudly, timed just as the man was about to speak. "When I went to do so, it turned out that someone else had already given them the tip. That would mean the payment for my services would be going towards someone else, and after all the work I've put in I'd really rather it not. Fortunately for you in this particular situation, my loss is your gain!" Finally getting where this conversation was going the man's hostility dissipated.

"So what do you want?" the man asked.

"Well since I can't collect my fee if she's caught here, I suppose she'll just have to be caught elsewhere. So why don't you just give me her room number and I'll make sure that this isn't the place she has a run-in with the boys in blue?" Naruto offered, using a bit of slang he had picked up from his year of analysis. The man responded with a derisive laugh.

"What do I care if she's caught here? If I cooperate then I got nothin' to worry about," the man retorted confidently. Naruto was now thoroughly convinced this guy was just an employee, and a dumb one to boot.

"First off, having a bust in your establishment looks bad enough to normal clientele, but to clientele who value their privacy it looks even worse. This place just so happens to strike me as a place for people who fit into the latter category," Naruto began, wiping away any smugness the man had built up almost instantly.

"Secondly, the blue boys here tend to take a more liberal interpretation of exigent circumstances than was intended. Who knows how much they might 'just happen to see' before they are done 'finding' my friend." Naruto wondered if he would need to define 'exigent circumstance' for the man, but as he saw the blood drain from his face Naruto figured that even if he didn't know, he got the gist of it. The only reason Naruto knew about it was that when he first got here the first thing he had subjected himself to was reading the laws cover to cover. Accidentally getting arrested for doing something illegal he didn't know about was the last thing he wanted.

After that, Naruto knew all he had to do was sit and wait for the man to break. Fortuitously he did not have to wait long. "Fine, your girl is in D8. Get her out of here and we ain't got no problem." The man practically snarled as he thrust forth a room key. Naruto took the key by its ring and twirled it around his finger.

"Actually I have just one more matter of discussion for an enterprising businessman such as yourself." As Naruto spoke, the man took on an expression that suggested the metal bars in front of him were more of a hindrance at this point.

" _What_ ," he growled. A coy smile took over Naruto's face.

"How would you like the exclusive privilege to decide where our black haired beauty gets found?"

* * *

Naruto made his way up the stairs of the motel with a healthy stack of cash in hand. Apparently, this place had a rivalry with one of the establishments near here that burned hot enough that it was worth breaking open the piggy bank to get back at them. Of course, by the time they realized the story Naruto had spun was just that, he would be behind the walls of Beacon again.

Learning to wheel and deal like that was definitely a skill he had a long time to develop when he did missions on the road. A lot of the time when he got called to resolve something it was a high ranking criminal who had gone to ground. At that point, the situation usually involved a lot of groundwork to find where exactly they had holed up. Sure, Naruto had the ability to track chakra in his sage mode more precisely than most anyone, but that didn't do him any good when he had no idea what the person's chakra felt like.

The result was a lot of questions to a lot of people. In the beginning, he had taken more of a brute force approach but was quickly made to reconsider his methods in his late twenties when that had led to a confrontation with an S-class criminal which promptly destroyed the room they were in. The Cloud had to front the bill for it because they assigned him the mission, but A (who was still 'advising' the raikage at the time) hadn't exactly been happy with him. From then on he slowly honed the ability to manipulate a conversation.

All in all Naruto had gotten lucky that the man at the front desk was both stupid, and trusted with money. Why would Blake listen to him if he was supposedly hunting her? What guarantee did he have that Naruto would honor their deal? In reality, the more disposable frontmen of criminals tended to get caught up in stories of grandeur. If you make the future seem bright enough, they'll forget to pay attention to all the inconsistencies going on in the background.

The fact that he was such an idiot was fortuitous for Naruto because it solved his zero-money problem for the foreseeable future. Naruto didn't have anything in particular he needed to spend money on, but having absolutely none of it to speak of posed an inconvenience in and of itself.

 _You were pretty quiet back there_. Naruto remarked as he made it to the fourth floor. A quick scan revealed the room D8, the designation quite literally written in marker on the door itself.

 _I never have much to say when you are negotiating. It almost makes you seem competent, and just imagining that gives me a headache. Actually, I'll just wait outside the building until you finish. Watching you play counselor to a teenage female sounds far more exhausting than I am willing to put up with._ Naruto flicked the fox's ear in retaliation which earned him several claws digging into his shoulders before Kurama silently jumped off, making his way back down the stairs. When all was said and done Blake still had cat ears, so taking the risk of her bolting before Naruto got in the room because she heard their approach, was the kind of delay even Kurama wanted to avoid.

Just to be sure that his story hadn't become a reality, Naruto activated his sage mode one last time to check on exactly where the two were positioned. Satisfied that they were at a distance sufficient to guarantee they weren't doing anything, Naruto deftly inserted the key, turned the lock, and opened the door in one motion to give Blake the least possible time to react.

His method of entrance had the desired effect of making sure she didn't have time to run, but also the obvious consequence of her weapon being zeroed in on him. Beside her was a blonde, monkey looking faunus, who appeared to have a distaste for buttoning his clothes and was wielding a staff. On the other hand Naruto stood slack and inattentive to the combat-ready stance of the two faunus.

"Normally cats make finding them a little easier by getting stuck up a tree," Naruto joked, ignoring the atmosphere of the room. After a notably tense silence Blake deflated, letting all the air she had been holding in out in a defeated sigh, holstering her weapons. The monkey boy followed suit, collapsing his staff and storing it under the back of his shirt.

"Why are you here?" Blake asked pointedly.

"When you didn't return, Ruby asked our team to help find you. So discluding me, as I've already found you, that makes six more pairs of boots on the ground looking for you. I'm Naruto by the way," he said as he extended his hand to the monkey faunus. Possibly to defuse the tense situation, or maybe because he had a laid back personality, the faunus was happy to shake hands.

"I'm Sun, you a friend of Blake's?" Sun asked, trying to lighten the mood with some easy conversation.

"Well, considering friends running away and me having to find them seems to be a theme in my life, she just might be," Naruto joked dryly, quickly thwarting Sun's hopes for a more cheery mood. Naruto took his scroll out of his pocket and began to send a message, prompting an immediate response from Blake.

"What are you doing?" she asked in a tone that suggested she was ready to pounce. Naruto held up his hands in a gesture of peace.

"I'm just letting them know that I found you, you are safe, and they can stop looking," Naruto started. "I'm not going to tell them where we are, you can relax," he followed up, predicting what she would say next. Blake pursed her lips for a few seconds before speaking.

"Why not?" she asked.

"You obviously ran away for a reason. Wouldn't exactly be right to drag you back without hearing why," Naruto explained simply as he continued to send his text. Not entirely satisfied, but not having a good reason to argue, Blake stood silently as she waited for Naruto to finish sending the message. As one minute became two, and two became five, Sun began to fidget in place due to the sheer awkwardness of the situation. Blake had begun tapping her foot in impatience, and finally, she could take no more.

"All right, what are you really texting them!? You've been typing for the past five minutes!" Blake demanded to the team leader, who was still in the middle of hunting his next letter. Naruto immediately went on the defensive.

"Look, I'm new to this whole texting thing! I'm not the fastest at pushing the letters so it is taking me awhile to make all the messages!" Naruto justified. Blake was about to fire back a response when a wrench got thrown into her thought process by something Naruto said. Eventually, she figured out what had thrown the mental wrench, but she couldn't accept it was possible.

"Do you mean that you sent all six of them separate messages?" Blake asked in disbelief.

"Well, everyone I have the numbers of! I don't know if they've split up or not, so I'm sending messages to all of them to be sure," Naruto obliviously continued typing away.

"Dude… group messaging?" Sun offered questioningly. Naruto practically groaned at this point at their lack of understanding.

"I know! I'm messaging the group, just give me a few more minutes, I'm finishing up Ruby's." Naruto groused as he continued to search and peck with his right hand, while his left hand held the scroll. As serious as the trouble Blake was in with her team was, she voluntarily moved it to the backburner. Right now, she had to teach the Nevermore leader how to hold a scroll, message on a scroll, and what exactly group messaging was, or else she was worried they'd be here all day.

* * *

"I heard the Schnee company had been attacked by the White Fang for the past while, but I had no idea Weiss took it so personally. Guess his business being attacked would really sour her father's mood," Naruto mused after hearing the story from Blake. Sun had relaxed into a chair that looked so cheap someone probably had to pay this place to take it, somehow managing to lean back without having the entire chair fall apart beneath him.

"Still, joining a terrorist organization? I guess you really are my friend at this point." Naruto joked, primarily for his own benefit. Blake was not so amused.

"This isn't a laughing matter, Naruto!" She seethed at him. Her relationship with her team had fallen apart, she might not be able to be a huntress, she couldn't go back to the one place that had started to feel like home. Naruto's response to all of this was to chuckle.

"I'm getting the feeling you are grossly overreacting to all of this," Naruto said, sobering his tone in an effort to take this seriously. "Why do you think there is a problem?"

Blake didn't even know how to respond to that. She had been part of a terrorist organization, hid the fact that she was a faunus, and to top it all off one of her teammates was a Schnee. Her problems were so numerous and monumental she couldn't even see a way out of them!

"I was a part of the White Fang," Blake stated. In her eyes, the largest and hardest to forgive problem.

"You were part of the White Fang when they were a civil rights group. The more terroristic they became, the less you believed in what they were doing, so you eventually left. I'm sure your whole team hates you for wanting faunus equality, but being against using violence to obtain it," Naruto chuckled as he finished. Blake blinked like a deer caught in the headlights. She would never forgive herself for letting the White Fang become what it did, but she left and became a huntress because she actively opposed what they did.

"Ya know, when he puts it that way Blake, I'm sure your friends wouldn't even think of blaming you for what the White Fang has done," Sun chimed in. Blake instinctively wanted to protest, but she couldn't find the words to disagree.

"Even if they could forgive me being part of the White Fang that doesn't change the fact that I hid it from them! I hid being a faunus from them!" Blake yelled in near hysteria. Naruto's expression remained pleasantly bemused.

"Pretty sure Weiss equated being a faunus to being a criminal before you ran off according to your story. Pretty reasonable that you'd be afraid of telling her what you really were. Still, if she's your friend you need to be honest with her and trust that she'll make the right choice." Naruto flinched as he said that, but quickly carried on. "Just punch her in the face and call her a dumbass. That's how we solve disputes between friends back where I come from."

"Where the hell do you come from?" Sun asked, half-admiring and half-admonishing the way they did things.

"A place with problems that makes this feel like a relaxing Saturday afternoon," Naruto chuckled wistfully. As he finished speaking a silence blanketed the room and Blake was left uncertain. Was she overreacting? Would her team really have disavowed her for what she had done? In the end, she only had one last defense that made what she did make any sense.

"Weiss hates me… I was a member of the White Fang and I'm a faunus. After all this she probably thinks I'm nothing but a criminal," Blake struggled to keep her composure. Even if she had just met them, her team and their room had begun to feel like a home. The thought of having that taken from her was a large part of why she ran away. At least if she did it of her own accord it would hurt less.

"Could be," Naruto stated simply as he shrugged. "I think you're underestimating Dobe, however, I might be wrong. Still, I don't think the chance of one person rejecting you is worth running out on the rest of your team for."

Blake suddenly felt like such a brat. She may have made a mistake staying with the White Fang as long as she had, and maybe she could have done more to prevent the White Fang from going down the path it had, but when she really thought about the idea of Ruby or Yang hating her for her past it all just felt so stupid. Neither of them were the type to condemn her for that, especially not if she was doing everything she could to right those wrongs.

"Now I feel like the idiot," Blake chuckled wetly- apparently she had started crying at some point.

"No arguments here," Naruto grinned warmly at her. "Now can we get you back to your team?" Blake nodded gingerly in response, so much so it was more a light bobbing of her head. However, just as Naruto was about to open the door she stopped him.

"Wait!" she said, causing Naruto to stop with his hand on the doorknob. "I… this all started because a dust shop got robbed and the police suspected the White Fang. I need to be sure they aren't responsible or stop them if they are."

"You know, when I was stowed away on that ship I heard they had to unload a huge shipment of dust from Atlas. Whoever is robbing all the dust shops might just hit that shipment." Sun chimed in, causing Blake to surge.

"So if we stakeout the docks, then maybe we'll see who is really robbing those dust stores and clear the White Fang's name!" Blake began to enthusiastically plan. Before Naruto could even mount a resistance she had already begun to devise a full-scale operation. Managing to find a lull in the fast-talking kitty's rapid planning, Naruto interjected.

"All right there kitty, back up. That is definitely a job for some actual huntsmen, or you know, the police? This is way too much for us to be tackling right now." Blake looked to the floor with her expression downcast. That was until a spark of recognition flashed through her eyes.

"You!" She shouted as she pointed at Naruto. "You said you went on missions with your instructor before, you're the strongest person in our class, and the way you led us at initiation, you've clearly lead a team before! If you take point and lead us even you have to admit we'd be fine!" Naruto looked conflicted, as if he wasn't sure what was the right thing to do. As he deliberated Blake became more and more certain she was going to get rejected.

"Come on dude, this is important to her. If you can't help a lady in need then what are you doing with your youth?" Sun encouraged Naruto, taking Blake's side. She turned to smile at him before quickly returning her eyes to Naruto to see if he had changed his mind. What she saw was a Naruto who didn't seem to be all the way there.

"Wasting our youth, huh? I guess it is the springtime of your youth." Naruto smiled with crushing melancholy. As he closed his eyes and his body just seemed to relax, the tension drained from his face. Even though he was physically in the room Blake was certain that he was far away from where she was. Minutes passed in absolute silence before Naruto finally opened his eyes.

"Fine, we'll check this dock out," he finally relented. Blake smiled and silently cheered in her mind. She would have just gone by herself, but part of her thought that Naruto wouldn't let her. As ridiculous as it was to say that his allowing of something was necessary for her to do this, she was certain he had the ability to physically restrain her and drag her back if he thought that was the right thing to do. Because of that, she had quickly decided it would be better to get him on board with the plan rather than display any outright obstinance.

"If we're doing this then I am your leader until we finish this impromptu mission. That means what I say goes, and if you can't agree with that I'm dragging Blake back right now," Naruto addressed both of the faunus. Blake silently praised her earlier perception as she nodded.

"Whatever you say, dude," Sun said with a laugh as he rocked back and forth on his feet. Blake could tell Naruto wasn't enthused with his attitude towards the makeshift mission, but he didn't say anything more about it.

"Well now that we've settled that let's g-" Naruto was interrupted by a rapping knock at the door. Blake settled into a ready stance, causing Sun to follow suit. Naruto turned towards the door and held out an open palm, signaling them to stop.

"What's going on?" Naruto asked towards the door. Before Blake could ask if he knew who was on the other side there was a response. Blake identified it as the voice of the man she had checked in with.

"I saw a cop walking alone on the street outside. Pretty sure it's the bust's scout. You need to get your whore out of here."

"Got it, I'll take her out the window," Naruto replied, receiving a grunt of affirmation as the sound of heavyset footsteps faded into the distance.

"Does… does that man think I'm a prostitute?" Blake asked Naruto, mouth agape.

"Ohhhhh that… real funny story, but let's save that for… actually, let's just forget that ever happened," Naruto reconsidered as he moved towards Blake and Sun. Blake was distracted by what had just happened and thus wasn't on guard for when Naruto picked her up with his left arm and threw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Sun, on the other hand, was a bit warier and was about to move out of the way of the oncoming Naruto. Unfortunately for him that only resulted in Naruto's arm moving at an incredible speed in order to catch him, effectively delivering a high-powered closeline straight to Sun's stomach as he was thrown over Naruto's right shoulder.

"Naruto!?" Blake shouted in confusion before letting out a cat-like hiss.

"Dude, what the hell!?" Sun angrily fired off.

"Hold on tight," Naruto said as he jumped out of the window of the four story building. Although Blake couldn't fathom why he didn't just have them all jump down themselves, it turned out his reasons were actually pretty simple. Firstly, he didn't know how far people could jump from in Remnant, and secondly, Naruto really didn't want to be there when the front-desk man found out there was no raid and realized that he had just given away an ill-advised amount of money to a random student.

* * *

 _ **Well that's all! Remember when I spent four pages talking about nails and construction? Prepare for me to do almost the same thing about trucks next chapter! See you next time.**_


	16. To Lead

_**Greetings and salutations! I'm the author of that one fanfic that is impressively NOT DEAD! You heard it here folks, 100% bonafide, certifiably alive fic author here! I missed you guys, but real life kind of decided to punch me in the nads a bit. You can be assured that I am not one for dwelling and am now returning to this fic in some capacity. I need to get through some news that I hope you all read as it is incredibly important. First off, though not the cause of the delay, our beta Alleria has signed off of this project for personal reasons. Thus, you can now expect a much more messy work until someone offers to take her place. Secondly, I need some funding in order to eat food. Please go to the beloved site that starts with P and helps you pledge creators money in order to keep me working on this fic. I don't need much, but I currently have quite a few projects on my plate between learning Japanese, walking seven miles a day, going to the gym, and looking for a new place of employment. If we hit as low a bar as fifty dollars I will be able to guarantee monthly uploads from here on. With that being said I am delighted and enthralled to announce chapter fifteen of An Old Fox's New Trick. This chapter is part 1 of the climax of the first arc! The second one should be out with less delay depending on pledges to the site that begins with P.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 15**

 **To Lead...**

Naruto knew that he was dreaming. Throughout his life he had never been particularly good at distinguishing illusion from reality, even in dream form, but this was something of a different matter. Since his exile he'd had this dream more times than he could count. A simple dream that, by itself, encapsulated just how wrong he had been about what the future held. A moment in time where he had pondered the past while considering a future that he would never get to have.

He looked out the window as a caravan of vehicles was pulling into his village. Looking back it really was amazing how many lives these four wheeled marvels of technology had ruined. He first encountered one of these strange devices on assignment in the Land of Earth. A simple glance at the expansive storage area attached to the back revealed that their purpose was to move things from one location to another. The most confusing part was that this truck had long strips of stone in place of wheels, making it look like something that would better traverse snow than land.

When Naruto asked the man who was currently loading the vehicle what it was the man had informed him it was called a truck. Apparently it used technology originally pioneered by the Leaf that stored jutsu. From there they equipped the truck with one of those devices on each stone slab with a jutsu that would make the earth beneath it physically move the truck forward. At the time, Naruto thought it was one of the most impressive pieces of technology he had ever seen. Despite that, the technology behind that truck became completely antiquated within five years.

That iteration of the truck was the first, yet by no means was it universal in its application. The first problem was that because it is used the earth beneath it to move it would completely warp any pathed roads that had previously been built to accommodate wheeled transport such as wagons. The truck created such a problem that use of them was quickly outlawed in city areas by the tsuchikage. There was also the problem that the stored jutsu had to be fairly weak so that it could be used without constantly replacing the device. The low strength of the jutsu meant that if the ground beneath it wasn't level enough the truck would get stuck. All in all despite being incredibly useful, it was a flawed technology.

Over the years all the nations attempted to create an improvement on the Land of Earth's truck. Ultimately, the design that had emerged head and shoulders above all others came from the Land of Lightning. One of the scientists there had the idea of creating a receptacle that could retain lightning chakra that was injected into it. The idea was inspired by just taking the power source they used for their wireless radios and cranking it up to a much larger scale. From there the power source would spend itself to somehow make the circular wheels in a truck spin. This was the breakthrough that revolutionized the truck.

Suddenly these vehicles were compatible with the paved roads in cities, unlike the Earth's previous incarnation. From there the popularity of the truck exploded. Every nation began to use trucks for hauling of all types of freight. The truck reached such popularity it wasn't uncommon for a small town to communally pool their money to afford a truck for the community to use. The invention of the truck helped some villages in poverty greatly improve their standard of life.

At first it seemed like the invention of the truck was nothing but a boon to the Elemental Nations. Of course things were never that simple. A Leaf scientist had the idea that a truck could be optimized towards the task of carrying people if it removed the storage bed attached to the back of the truck and instead added more seats. This marked the birth of the car. By itself the car was an incredible boon with implications as large as that of a truck.

The car allowed people to travel further distances to their place of work. Something that simple revolutionized cities in a way that Naruto couldn't have imagined. The sheer size of the average city grew to the point where you would need a car or a truck just to travel the city as an ordinary person. As the car became increasingly common in the Elemental Nations they faced their first problem with the vehicle; a lack of lightning natured shinobi.

Having shinobi capable of powering the vehicles hadn't been a problem when it was just trucks. The hidden villages would have state assigned shinobi to recharge the power receptacles (for a nominal fee). The smaller towns prioritized making sure a resident had lightning nature chakra and could use a jutsu sufficient to charge the vehicle. That person didn't necessarily need to be a shinobi, instead they prioritized learning a singular lightning jutsu just for the sake of powering the few vehicles their town would have. However, trying to learn a jutsu with a chakra nature when one didn't know any other jutsu was incredibly difficult. Villages would have to spend upwards of a decade waiting for said person to learn one lightning jutsu. That said, the idea became so widespread that the occupation of 'charger' was created.

The problem arose when the scientists in the larger villages heard of the chargers. Training shinobi was by no means cheap. Despite the great increase in safety and security after the Fourth Great Ninja War the occupation still wasn't exactly safe. Because of that a movement was made to create an organization that would search for children with lightning based natures in order to groom them to become chargers.

Private corporations took to this like wildfire. The first step was to invent a new type of chakra paper that did not require chakra to be molded to activate. Then they would employ something akin to door to door salesmen and unleash them upon a community with briefcases full of the newly developed chakra paper everywhere they could find people. From there they would lay out an impressive salary and comprehensive benefit package to any adults who possessed chakra with lighting nature so they could train them to enter the workforce as soon as possible.

Although Naruto wasn't particularly fond of the idea of chargers, he didn't think it was a particularly big deal either. What he hadn't realized was he was bearing witness to the largest and most groundbreaking industrialization to have occurred in his lifetime. At that point an overwhelming majority of shinobi protested the idea of teaching ninjutsu without any semblance of education. The ability to create lightning wasn't exactly a simple jutsu, neither was it low in destructive force.

After much deliberation it was decided that chargers would be allowed and unopposed by the hidden villages. Naruto hadn't been at the Five Kage Summit when it had happened, but he had heard that there was a lot of pressure from the feudal lords to approve it. At the time Naruto thought that would be the end of it.

It turns out that when you give some people an inch, they take a mile. One of the corporations figured out that the only way to undercut their competition in the recruitment process was to get to there earlier than anyone else. They started sending out people who would check the chakra natures of children. From there they would offer the parents a 'benefits package' that essentially boiled down to a bribe scheduled to be delivered on a monthly basis. The condition was that they would have their child attend a camp for three summers, starting at age fifteen and ending at age seventeen.

It sounded innocent enough at first. The representatives explained it was a camp where they would spend time with other kids their age. Their child would do activities, make friends, and learn how to use the skills necessary to be a charger. What actually happened was that he children were forced through grueling training to learn to mold chakra and use a lightning jutsu far above the beginner level, when they couldn't even accomplish normal jutsu at a beginner level. As back breakingly difficult as the camp was, opting out of it wasn't an option for most children. Other than shinobi, all children were technically under the authority of their parents until they turned eighteen. The fact was that even if the kids wanted to run away, most of them wouldn't.

If the kids didn't attend the 'camp' then the family hadn't held up their contractual obligation. That meant that all the money that they had received over the years was owed back to the corporation, in addition to a tidy termination fee. Unsurprisingly very few of the families who had signed the contract had the means to pay back the money they had been receiving over the years. That fact that every kid knew was if they chose to run away from the camp they were abandoning their family to bankruptcy.

It may have come as a surprise to some that there weren't any laws preventing things like this. To those people, it really shouldn't have been. Children had worked alongside their families for generations in the Elemental Nations. Whether as shinobi, farmhands, or working in the family shop, working as a kid was just part of life. No laws were in place for an industrial revolution of this scope because it could not have been foreseen.

Out of fear of being undercut the practice was quickly adopted by nearly all of the corporations in the business of chargers. There were a few that had chosen to abstain for obvious moral reasons, but also because they could see the potential blowback that was coming. Though it could never been proven, there was reason to believe one such company might have found a way to tip off a certain spiky haired guardian of the people of the location of one of the camps.

Thus Naruto had bore witness to one of these camps himself. He had decided to sneak into it after hearing some truly horrifying rumors a couple of folks had been saying very loudly next to him as he walked through the Leaf Village. The things he saw there resulted in Konohamaru calling a Five Kage Summit the next day. Within a few weeks the practice was outlawed in all five hidden villages and all subsidiary land, but they didn't stop there.

All money that had been paid to the families of children who had not yet attended the camp was property of said families, all children that had gone through the camps were owed substantial restitution, and the companies who had participated had their names dragged through the mud by all five kage across the Elemental Nations. For the companies involved it was nothing short of a disaster that threatened to end every one of them, successfully ending some. At the time Naruto couldn't help but think they had gotten their just deserts. Once again he thought that would be the end of it.

What he didn't take into account was that eventually the post-fourth-war kages would retire and cede their seats to someone else. By that point the culture in each village had changed to be more political, people said it was more democratic. The kage still wielded immense political power, but opposition to the kage had been slowly chipping away at their authority for decades. As such when it came time for Darui to retire from his position as raikage the people of the lightning wanted to have a say in who became the next raikage. The daimyō ultimately consented to the will of the people with the understanding that he would have the authority to reject the elected official if they were unworthy.

Whereas the car started the ninjutsu industrial era, this decision marked the first time a daimyō would circumvent the current kage's authority to suggest a successor. Darui had no choice but to accept this proposed process under implied threat of the entire village losing access to the budget set forth by the daimyō. Despite diversification, the money from the daimyōs remained the lifeblood of each hidden village. From that point on the world as Naruto knew it flipped on its head.

In the land of Water, Earth, and Sand similar elections were held to determine the next kage. Of the four new kage, only the tsuchikage had any interest in the ninja ways that had allowed their villages to exist for centuries. Konohamaru was younger than the rest of the post-war kage and was thus the oldest of the current kage by far. It had taken ten years after the war, but eventually Kakashi had stepped down to make room for Konohamaru. Only after both of them had deferred the position to Naruto time and time again. In reality, some of the things Naruto experienced during his travels made him think that it wasn't his place to lead a village. He chuckled at the irony of this position as the leader of a village of political dissidents.

The remaining three would roll out policies that would undermine their shinobi institutions at the fastest pace they could muster. As such, they repealed the child charger laws in their nations that had prevented what was essentially the practice of poaching children. Naruto had looked into it and it didn't seem like any of the kage were gaining anything by doing this. The only reason he could come up with was that charging was one of the most commonly requested things of shinobi. By doing this they were effectively trying to choke out any life in the shinobi system they could get their hands around.

To this day Naruto couldn't understand exactly why they were so determined to see the ninja way die out, but it was obvious to him that it was their goal. Naruto shook such thoughts from his head as he watched box after box of nails being offloaded from the trucks by the villagers. He might not be the Hokage, but he was the leader of these people he had saved. As such, he had managed to get the literal tons of nails they needed to start construction on homes. It turned out he had never actually been paid for the past almost five decades of work he had done. Seeing as most of his missions had been pretty high difficulty by modern standards, he had actually accrued quite the fortune.

These nails would help anchor down the foundation of this new village he had wandered into being in charge of. Naruto swore then and there that he would never let anything happen to this village like what had happened to the Elemental Nations. After all, he was immortal.

* * *

As Naruto awoke he found something he expected and something he didn't. Kurama had opted to use Naruto's stomach as a makeshift bed, a method he had once used fairly regularly, thus something he expected. He also awoke to find a more delicate hand being held firmly by his own, much to the distress of the owner of the hand in question, something he did not expect. As he blinked the sleep from his eyes it didn't take him long to guess what had happened.

"I told you I could keep watch in my sleep." Naruto gave a languid grin as he lightly tossed Blake's captured hand out of his own, said cat faunus appearing supremely embarrassed by her hand being captured. Presumably she had tried to poke his face or something of that nature, prompting his reflexes to kick in. Decades of sleeping under trees in the wilderness added a certain edge to your sleeping habits. The three of them had camped out on top of a building overlooking the shipyard. Blake had pointed it out and Naruto didn't care enough to point out the tactical weaknesses of a rooftop perch when there were things that could fly directly over it, spotting them instantly.

Naruto was only going through with this waste of time to humor her. The idea that this harbor would be robbed was itself ridiculous. Both the port and the cargo were fairly large as a starting argument against robbing it. They had arrived in time to see the ship Sun had stowed away in offloading the presumed dust shipments to a large shipping container in the port. That left very few options in methods to actually secure and transport the dust.

Stealing the entire shipping container would require the use of both a freight boat and the port's very own crane. If a group of criminals could steer a boat into the port without anyone noticing, use something as massive and noisy as a crane to move the dust without having the entirety of Vale's PD called on them, and then sail off to wherever they intended to store said dust without being intercepted, then Naruto was inclined to just let them get away with it. Kami knew if that was the case then the people who ran this port didn't want to keep that dust here anyway.

Considering everything that needed to go right for an approach by sea Naruto was willing to rule it out. Since the imaginary criminals would not come by sea, that left land and sky. Both of the remaining options were possible, but had different benefits and detriments. By land they would have to bring a vehicle to transport the dust with past or through the front gate. Assuming the port had any form of automatic security, such blatant trespassing would probably trip some alarm or another. At that point it was a race to find the storage container, break into the storage container, and transfer the dust from the storage container to their vehicle. The whole operation would be pretty tight on time, but if it was executed properly any would-be thieves could be in and out before any law enforcement had the chance to respond.

If one was to go by air the security systems of the port itself could be circumvented. If the alarm systems could be bypassed then any potential robbers could take more time opening the storage crate and loading their aircraft. The main issue with that was that it an aerial raid should be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. The Hidden Leaf Village had a detection barrier around it for any potential attacks from the sky and they didn't even have aircraft. Naruto was fairly certain that Vale had some method of tracking aircrafts in the sky in order to flag any unauthorized ones.

Between the two it was hard to weigh the costs and benefits to find the optimal modus. As he frankly didn't care, Naruto resolved to just sit and wait for both of those events to not happen before he could go back to his warm bed. After spending the majority of fifty years without a bed he was surprised by how quickly he grew accustomed to, and started to miss it. Beds were truly a magical thing.

"So I'm guessing you're from Beacon too?" Sun attempted to initiate a conversation with Naruto.

"Yeah." Naruto answered as he ran his hand through Kurama's fur. "I'm the leader of Nevermore. I guess you could say we're pretty close with Blake's team." He continued. Naruto appreciated the fact that Sun was trying to be amiable by starting a conversation, so he didn't want to snuff it out so quickly.

"I'm actually a team leader too." Sun declared a bit proudly, appearing very eager to match Naruto for some reason that escaped said person.

"Congratulations. I hope you'll lead them to great success." Naruto replied. Not exactly sure how to respond to that Sun just scratched his head awkwardly.

"You know you really give off this old man impression." Sun complained exasperatedly as he threw out his arms and laid on his back to match Naruto.

"Yeah, okay." Naruto rolled his eyes while his agreement oozed sarcasm.

"He's right you know." Blake quietly agreed as her eyes were once again glued to the dock. "Sometimes it's the way you act, others it's just the aura you give off, but you just feel older than us sometimes."

Naruto gave his best attempt at a casual shrug however the fact that he was lying on the ground combined with this being a very not casual topic for him left it looked awkward. "Like I said at lunch, when people trust kids with self ownership they get to make a lot more choices for themselves. For me that meant a lot of somewhat reasonable decisions that managed to lead to some impressively bad outcomes. It really wasn't my fault!" Naruto defended himself after receiving a disbelieving stare from Blake, who promptly turned back towards the port.

"What do you mean?" Sun asked as he sat up cross legged.

"I bugged the leader of our village to let us go on a higher rank mission because I was sick of chasing lost cats every day- that's pretty standard stuff for the twelve year olds where I come from." Naruto explained upon seeing Sun's face. As the light of understanding entered the faunus' eyes Naruto continued.

"So he gave us what should have been a simple mission. My team and a full fledged huntsmen were supposed to bodyguard some guy who needed to repair a bridge. The mission really wasn't going to be much, but bodyguard sounded a hell of a lot cooler than cat chaser."

"Wait… so you're saying that when you were twelve you got sent out as a bodyguard?" Sun asked in disbelief.

"Well yeah, but it was only a C rank mission. We just expected to worry about muggers, thugs, or some other hired muscle. Actually ended up a lot worse than that." Naruto chuckled fondly. At the time he thought that was going to be the hardest mission he ever had. By this point it probably didn't even rank in the top ten.

"So twelve year olds fighting muggers and thugs is normal where you come from?" Sun asked with concern. Sun considered himself a pretty laid back guy, but come on!

"I mean we train to use ch-aura from the time we are nine or younger. A twelve year old who can use his semblance, or even just aura tends to be more powerful than a mugger who can't. Even then it wasn't like they let us do it unsupervised. All the children teams had to have a high ranking huntsmen with them on all of their missions." Naruto finished nonchalantly as he attempted to roll out of his verbal slip up. However, internally he was chastising himself for losing focus.

"Yeah, ok, I get it." Sun nodded, seeming a bit more on board. "If you have a strong huntsmen with you than you can get some experience without being put into too much danger. So what happened next? Were there more thugs than you expected and your leader had to step in?"

Naruto laughed awkwardly, scratching his cheek in embarrassment. "Well… we kind of ran into some huntsmen, but fought them off. Kakashi, our leader, asks the bridge builder what's going on and we find out the bridge builder lied to us about the difficulty of the mission so the mission fee would be cheaper. Then one night I'm training myself into unconsciousness and some hot girl helps me back on my feet and we talk. After we talk a bit I find out the hot chick is actually a man and we become friends. I meet back up with my team and we escort the bridge builder towards the bridge that needs repair, but run into a full fledged huntsmen who was tasked with killing the bridge builder by a gang." Naruto inhaled an impressive amount of air before continuing.

"So Kakashi starts fighting this S rank rogue huntsmen to a standstill, but eventually he gets captured in a water prison technique. Thankfully the weakness of this semblance is pretty obvious in that it occupies one of his hands as long as he wanted to use it while also not being able to move any further than an arm's length from the person he catches. So Kakashi couldn't move or do anything as long as this rogue huntsman was near him. So the three of us attack him and manage to force him to move, freeing Kakashi who eventually beats the rogue huntsmen. Right as he is about to finish the rogue huntsmen off some other huntsmen wearing a mask shows up and pretends to do the job for him by throwing some needles at the rogue huntsmen's neck. Turns out it was actually the guy that looked like a girl I had met earlier and he was in cahoots with the rogue huntsmen."

"Holy shit." Sun gave an incredibly quiet whistle as to not provoke Blake, who presently still appeared adamant that someone was going to show up as she glared at the port. "That's one hell of a first mission. I'm guessing that was the end of it?"

"Heh… heheh…. not exactly." Naruto awkwardly chuckled.

"You've got to be kidding me! What else could possibly happen?" Sun gave up on being exasperated, merely accepting that this fellow blonde's life was already far outside the borders of his comprehension. Blake leveled him with a glare for being

"Not all that much… I mean I almost died, my teammate took the finishing blow meant for me and I actually thought he died, I unlocked my semblance forcibly, the masked pretty boy died because his comrade, the rogue huntsmen, stabbed his sword through him to get a surprise attack on Kakashi, then the gang that hired the rogue huntsmen betrayed him because he had lost the ability to use his arms and they didn't want to pay him and they didn't like him, so he took a kunai in his mouth and slaughtered them until he had killed their leader, inadvertently inspiring the townspeople where the gang had taken up to rebel against the gang and force them out of town, leading to their freedom, the rogue huntsmen then laid down to die alongside his companion that he had killed because he actually cared about him, so we honored that by burying them side by side… that's all." Naruto had spoken so quickly and without any breathing that it sounded like one giant run on sentence.

As he concluded his story Sun just stared at him in slack jawed disbelief. Even Blake had given up on her staring match with the port to turn to him in a sort of awe. With only the sound of water slapping against the metal and asphalt of the port filling the air Naruto began to feel increasingly awkward.

"You know… when I say it out loud my childhood does sound a little weird…" Naruto laughed nervously while trying to avoid the piercing gazes he was receiving from both pairs of eyes.

"You think?" Sun and Blake responded sarcastically in perfect unison. As uncomfortable as the situation was, Naruto didn't have to stew in it for long. Appearing to react to nothing, Kurama's ears twitched from his position on Naruto's stomach as the fox opened his eyes. The seemingly innocuous action was anything but, providing a shot of adrenaline to Naruto as he burst into action.

Naruto quickly sat up and turned away from Blake and Sun, displacing Kurama harmlessly to the ground. He reached into his satchel and grabbed a scroll the size of his pinky from it. Injecting his chakra into the scroll it instantly increased to its full size as Naruto made sure to block it from the view of the two faunus. Unrolling it without being seen was impossible, so Naruto made a snap decision to try and overload their ability to process information.

"Hit the deck." Naruto ordered with a calm, yet forceful urgency. Simultaneously he touched a seal on the scroll, resulting in a small puff of smoke before a large grey blanket appeared out of thin air. Naruto's plan succeeded as Sun hastily went prone whereas Blake's eyes were darting around, attempting to find the source of Naruto's unrest due to the fact that she was already prone. With that Naruto quickly covered them all in the blanket without the others noticing his usage of fūinjutsu.

Naruto had selected a blanket that most closely resembled the color of the building they were positioned atop in order to minimize any chance of someone seeing them from a bird's eye view. Naruto signaled them to get as low as possible by slowly lowering his hand and body as close to the ground as possible. They quickly, but questioningly followed suit.

"Did you see something?" Blake whispered to Naruto from underneath the blanket. She had ended up on the far left, with Sun separating her from her intended questionee. Even Kurama had woken up and had poked his snout out of the blanket to overlook the port.

"Heard something." Naruto answered in a quiet talking voice. Blake looked at him in confusion.

"I have cat ears and I haven't heard anything. How on-" she abruptly stopped talking as the ears atop her head perked up. "How did you do that?" She asked in shock.

"Kurama heard them. Quiet down." Naruto answered briefly. Sun couldn't hear anything, but had decided to just relax and go with the flow. It didn't take long for him to be rewarded by the dull roar of turbines in the distance. From there the volume quickly amped up until the high pitched buzz of air meeting propeller was directly above them. The sound given off by the turbine seemed to draw closer for a few seconds before ultimately growing more distant. Safely assuming that the aircraft had landed the three of them waited motionlessly, the only sounds present were the whistling of air and the splashing of water. The exclusivity of the two sounds was soon intruded on by the sound of stairs deploying, followed by a seemingly emphatic thud.

Noting just how loud the volume of the impact was Naruto came to the conclusion that whatever they had flown in on was more military spec than civilian spec. Most of the civilian transport bullheads had disembarking stairs that would softly lower to the ground as to not damage the area they had landed. By comparison it was evident that whatever had just touched down had put a much higher value on not breaking itself than breaking the ground beneath it. Remembering small pieces of specific information like that had never been his forte growing up, but when you grew used to spending consecutive weeks sitting still… well even the smallest of things carried some amount of import considering there was nothing else worth remembering.

Naruto slowly crept towards the edge of the blanket that was facing the port. With a single finger over his mouth to indicate they needed to be quiet he gestured to the other two. Understanding his intent they both poked their heads out of the blanket to look down at what was happening. A quick peep on what was transpiring down below was enough to reveal that it obviously wasn't employees doing some late night work.

"Oh no…" Blake uttered softly, the picturesque sound of a wishful thought in its final passing. A group of people clad in black and white were making their way out of a military bullhead.

"That them?" Sun whispered to her, condolence already obvious in his voice.

"Yes… that's them." Blake replied sullenly. Silence permeated through the air until one of the White Fang below began to speak.

"All right, grab the tow cables." Commanded one of the faunus, gun in hand. Naruto noted that the apparent leader was armed and quickly came to a conclusion.

"Do either of you know how to use your scroll to record things?" Naruto asked. He knew it was a feature, but half an hour of fruitless clicking prior to this had bore no results as far as figuring out how to use it. Sun nodded his head as Blake continued to stare forward, too stricken by shock to react. "We're going to record this happening and pass it up to the Vale Police Department and Ozpin."

"What!?" Blake hissed at him at a volume that threatened to overcome the persistent sound of the blaring bullhead engines. Naruto immediately stared her down with eyes that threatened murder for her noisy outburst, but she persisted, albeit more quietly. "We're huntsmen and huntress in training. We can't just let them do this!"

"At least one of them has a gun, we're outnumbered at least five to one, and we don't know if and how many reinforcements they might still have inside that bullhead. I can't guarantee your safety if we go down there, so we aren't going." Naruto stated his verdict authoritatively. Guns were something that they didn't have in the Elemental Nations. Thus said weapons had warranted a sufficient amount of study from him during his year of research before he had enrolled.

According to the gun shop owners he had talked to the weapons were incredibly powerful. That theory was further evidenced by the fact that besides Weiss, everyone he knew had some sort of gun form for their weapon. That in itself wouldn't have been a problem, he had seen the bullets bounce harmlessly off of aura in Glynda's class enough times to know that the bullets weren't a guaranteed death sentence. The problem was that weapons had different calibers, some of which could exert so much force that it could completely penetrate the aura barrier.

When push came to shove protecting the two of them while trying to conceal his power was far too risky. He had been put in too many situations where protecting someone had forced him to use a technique far beyond what he should be capable of as a student. With that in mind, since he couldn't be sure he could keep them safe using said restrictions he wasn't willing to risk them getting hurt.

"Hey! What's the holdup?" A smarmy voice rang out. "We're not exactly the most inconspicuous bunch of thieves at the moment, so why don't you animals try to pick up the pace." An orange haired man emerged from the bullhead as he walked down its steps, cane clanking against the metal stairs. Naruto immediately reevaluated his previous observation; this man was the leader.

Even from a distance Naruto had to hand it to the guy, he had style. He wore a pristine white suit that was lined with a regal red fabric. His collar was popped up so tall that it almost looked like he wore a cowl, especially when combined with the grey ascot he wore around his neck. Aside from that Naruto could make out his black slacks, gloves, and undershirt; a stark and obviously intentional contrast to his white suit. Despite him looking like someone who paid extensive attention to his wardrobe, Naruto couldn't help but think that the man looked a little feminine.

"This isn't right. The White Fang wouldn't take orders from a human, especially not someone like him." Blake started in a tone of disbelief, but her voice gradually toughened as she continued to speak. Naruto had lived long enough to recognize when someone's resolve was hardening.

"Right or wrong there is nothing we can do about it without taking huge risks. We'll record what we can and give it to the people whose job it is to do something about it. Do not under any circumstances-" Not to Sun's surprise or even Naruto's own, Blake quietly freed herself from the confines of the camouflage blanket and silently jumped down to the ground below the building. Naruto was beyond enraged, but he had learned how to compartmentalize emotions like that while on assignment at any cost.

"Wait until we see what Blake's play is, then I want you to to prioritize the two of you staying safe while I take care of the boss." Naruto addressed the exasperated Sun, who quickly snapped to attention. The action itself looking fairly comical considering he was laying on the ground, underneath a blanket. Naruto briefly activated his sage mode to get an accurate head count of how many enemies they'd be fighting. Within a few seconds he grimaced in unhappy resignation; he was right.

There were too many combatants to deal with while keeping up his guise as a student. He rapidly ran through all of the options he had for dealing with multiple combatants to search for the ideal choice in this scenario. Crossing out almost every option available didn't take long by any definition of the word. Pretty much every jutsu he had was ruled out by being too problematic, too destructive, or just being ill suited for multiple people.

The obvious choice for the scenario was shadow clones, but that was the jutsu he was most hellbent on keeping secret. Of all the jutsu he ever used back home none had ever caused him as much grief as his signature technique. Incredibly annoyed that his attempt to avoid revealing more of his abilities was going to result in him doing just that, Naruto decided to swallow the bitter medicine.

 _Kurama, keep the kids safe._ Naruto instructed the fox directly to his left.

 _Hoh? You actually want me to fight?_ Kurama asked with a small amount of surprise.

 _No jutsu, no malice, no one dies, and prioritize protecting the kids above all else, I don't care if any of them get away._ Naruto hurriedly listed as Blake started to sneak up on the feminine man. Kurama gave a toothy grin that oozed an almost tangible thirst.

 _No blood?_ Kurama pupils dilated, a mounting excitement growing increasingly evident.

 _No permanent injury._ Naruto clarified as Blake made her final approach on man in the suit. Kurama gave a low, rumbling laugh as Naruto added his final restriction. The fox's laugh was like a dark, roiling lava that promised to devour its prey into its depths before ultimately burning it whole. The mere sound of Kurama's quiet laugh combined with a healthy amount of overpowering instinct made all of Sun's hair stand on end.

Blake had closed in on the leader without being detected, a feat that was both impressive and commendable considering the number of boots they had on the ground. Much to Naruto's disappointment, her next move did not live up to those standards.

"What the- oh for fu-" Naruto groaned as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Blake had taken the leader hostage by means of a blade to his throat. His vision was good enough to notice that she had pulled him in to the point that his back was pressed against her not-insubstantial chest. Naruto imagined that having a sharp object pressed to your throat would override the enjoyment of that sensation for most people, and the redheaded leader she had captured seemed to not be an exception.

Having taken their leader hostage, Blake began to give a speech. Naruto couldn't help but let another groan escape him as he quietly slapped the ground in embarrassment. He understood that she was a kid and was following her heart, but this was just too much! Despite fully knowing that it was wrong, he couldn't help but deny that he was ever this much of an idiot!

Blake's strategy of giving an impassioned address while allowing herself to get surrounded by the enemy was managing to fall short of Naruto's already low expectations. However, as it often did in Naruto's life, the bad took a turn for the worse pretty quickly.

 _There are more._ Kurama informed an increasingly agitated Naruto. Sure enough it didn't take long before the sound of another bullhead flying overhead was ringing in his ears. In a stroke of bad luck that just felt par for the course at this point, when Naruto went to look it turned out there was not one, but two additional aircraft. That brief shift in focus did not go unpunished, for in the brief time Naruto had looked towards the sky an explosion rumbled from the earth.

A rushed survey of the now battlescape led Naruto to believe that the fancy dresser had created the explosion to release himself from Blake's hold. _Grab her and retreat towards the main entrance. Fight anyone who pursues you and keep the kids safe._ Kurama's consent was not verbalized, but displayed by his leaping off the building to enter the fray.

"Follow my fox towards the main entrance. He is going to stick with you and Blake and keep you safe while you fight any of the grunts that pursue you. Fight your way back to me, but prioritize your and Blake's safety above all else. I can handle myself." Naruto emphasized his words to Sun with a slap on the back to stir his fellow blonde into motion. Sun was ready to leap into combat

As Naruto fell towards the docks he was greeted by what once would have been a familiar sight. Instead of seeing Kurama in his recently smaller compressed form his companion had taken it up a notch. Whereas before Kurama was the size of a rather large cat, now he had the vastness of a medium sized bear. With a fervor of a beast long deprived of a meal Kurama dashed through a sea of White Fang towards their out of position cat.

Naruto couldn't find it in his heart to blame the White Fang for being terrified to the point that they were practically rooted in spot. That being said, neither could he blame Kurama for carving a bloody path through them. Naruto knew that Kurama wouldn't kill or maim any of them, so as each White Fang member fell to the ground holding onto whatever part of their body Kurama had decided to lacerate, he felt a very minimal amount of pity. They had chosen, and they were being punished for choosing poorly. That was all there was to it.

"What the hell is that thing?!" One of the White Fang members shouted as Kurama continued to tear through his brethren.

"Holy crap…" Sun muttered as they hit the ground, blood draining out of his face. In the few seconds they had been falling Kurama had already managed to make it to Blake, leaving five White Fang bleeding into the concrete. The fancy dresser quickly decided against being in charging fox's path and promptly vacated his current location. With the path to their black cat unobstructed, Kurama ran straight at her.

Whether through panic, instinct, or because of the many faunus he had left bleeding behind him, Blake failed to recognize the familiar fox and drew her weapon into its blade form. With impressive speed she brought her weapon down in a slash to cleave the oncoming fox. Unfortunately for her that speed was only impressive by Remnant standards, by the metrics of the Elemental Nations it was almost lackadaisical.

Slamming all four paws into the asphalt Kurama negated all of his forward momentum and lept to the left, completely avoiding Blake's attack. Before she could reset into position and swing again, Kurama maneuvered behind her and opened his maw. Instead of clamping down on her throat, which Blake was certain was about to happen, he merely gripped the scruff of her clothes and yanked her through the air. With a quick twist of Kurama's neck Blake was forced perpendicularly on his back and the two jettisoned off towards the entrance.

Despite having been completely forewarned as to what the plan was, the way in which it was executed still managed to catch Sun off guard. The blonde faunus didn't regain his bearings until Naruto started to move forward.

"Good evening and welcome members of the White Fang." Naruto projected his voice, pulling the attention of every member of the White Fang towards himself with his showboating demeanor. "Tonight you have the exciting opportunity to decide your destiny! Behind door number one is the thrilling opportunity to futilely fight my fox companion and the two faunus before they have the opportunity to raise the alarm to get the police over here." Sun's mind clicked back into reality and started sprinting after Blake, an unintentional emphasis of Naruto's point.

"If you instead choose to peek behind curtain number two, you'll see that everyone remaining here will have the pleasure of fighting me. Please decide your lot in life as quickly as you can! I can assure you any and all decisions you will make at this point are going to be equally terrible, so delaying unnecessarily is actually quite pointless." Naruto finished with smug aplomb.

To his credit the sheer ridiculousness of his entrance speech was enough to flabbergast every last one of them in place. If his goal had been to stall for time then the fact that they all stood still while he orated, in addition to the ten seconds of shocked silence that followed, would have to be considered a great success. Of course Naruto had no such goal, nor did he believe that this would somehow protect the two kids. The chance of them even getting scratched with Kurama protecting them was next to none. In reality this was no different than the way a veteran shogi player might try to capture as many pieces as possible with their king when playing against a novice; Naruto simply found this way of playing things out to be the most interesting.

After all what did it matter? He would always win in the end.

* * *

Some nights it had felt like Lady Luck practically lusted after him. Though as his night went from bad to shit, Roman reminded himself that it felt like an eternity since she left him to blow on some other guy's dice. Tonight was supposed to be the final box to check on his dust stealing spree throughout Vale. If he discounted the shufti with the red hooded midget and Goodwitch every other venture he had set out on turned predictable, quiet, instant returns. He takes the animals out for a walk, they point some guns at a shopkeeper, they rob him blind and go on their merry way. Why did this blonde brat have to make the last item on his shopping list such a chore?

Though it might have seen a bit preemptive to say that, Roman's gut was telling him things that things were about to go south. Five of his animals had just been left bleeding on the ground by this guy's actual animal, but his instincts told him things were going to get a whole lot worse before they failed to get better.

"Kid… I'm sure that sounded really cool in your head, but you're a little outnumbered here." Roman admonished the blonde with no small amount of exasperation. The blonde waved his finger back and forth, chastising Roman's assessment of the situation.

"But you see, I will be substantially less outnumbered when you split up to deal with my companions before they sound the alarm." The pest nodded sagely. Roman couldn't help but bury his face in his palm with a resounding slap as he shook his head.

"And what's to stop us from just dealing with you, hooking up the crates, and leaving before your little friends or the police arrive?" Roman groaned as he signaled the faunus, who then began to approach crates with the towing cables they had unloaded from the bullhead.

"Well… me obviously." The blonde replied, bafflement evident in everything; from his head, which was tilted slightly to the side as if to emphasize his confusion, to his voice, which implied the lot of them were nothing but billiard balls that had just been racked up, but yet to be broken.

As Roman continued to cautiously study the brat, a henchmen carrying the towing cable was almost in range of one of the dust containers. As he lifted his burlesque arms to attach the towing cable he was flung backwards, not unresemblant of a rag doll being tossed away by a child who had finished playing with it. For twenty or so feet he flew through the air before colliding with the ground, rolling on his side across the asphalt four or five times before the friction managed to overcome the inertia before Roman's eyes. Instinct told Roman what had happened, and he whipped his head back to the kid.

"If you aren't going to be agreeable enough to go and entertain my friend then it seems I only have one course of action…" He let hang in the air as his slow footsteps echoed through all of their ears much louder than the relaxed gait of his steps should have made possible. A terrifying smile began to break across the kid's previously innocent face. The smile continued to grow with each passing step, until he reached the crate the animal had tried to hook up. No one made any move to stop him, for by the time he had reached his destination his smile had grown from ear to ear. When he stopped the way his lips had contorted felt predatory in nature. "I suppose I'll have to have enough fun with all of you to make up for the hell Kurama will put me through later."

As Roman stared down the eyes of the veritable beast in front of him he silently ceded that things were going exactly as predicted. _And this marks the transition from bad to shit._ Roman remarked in silent chagrin to himself. The animalistic side of the crime lord was ready to about face and get the hell out of here, but even if he wasn't here on orders he couldn't do that. Pride and image mattered a lot in the criminal underworld. He couldn't run away from a score because one beat stood in his way.

"Kill the brat and get the merchandise ready to move. I don't want to be here when his friends come back with the police." Roman ordered the White Fang under his command. He rationalized there was no reason to get involved in what was already a thirty on one, but that wasn't it entirely. A part of him that was bursting to the surface despite his sincerest efforts to push it down felt the need for information on this blonde.

"You'd kill a student?" Roman heard the blonde remark. A Beacon student made a lot of sense for someone his age. Yet something about what the kid said was triggering some sort of cognitive dissonance. When people said that they tended to be afraid for their lives. Speaking those words was often some type of last appeal to another's better interest. Although Roman tended to avoid killing people himself, that didn't mean he was unused to being around it.

Still, Roman couldn't help but feel unsettled. The cold way in which the kid spoke felt more akin to condemnation than fear. Roman wanted to attribute the lack of fear to nothing more than childish ignorance, but couldn't bring himself to do it. Every hair standing up on his body was telling Roman to label this brat as a threat. Not one to go against his instincts, Roman decided to instead oblige them.

"Sorry kid, nothing personal. My gut just tells me leaving you alive is going to be way more trouble than it's worth." Roman offered a nugget of truth dressed in smarmy bravado. Though it couldn't have been louder than an exhale, Roman heard the brat give a single syllable chuckle as if the kid was right next to him.

And that's because he was.

"Then I guess I'll be a little less gentle." Roman thought he heard the blonde say, but he couldn't be sure, his mind was overloaded with trying to process the intense pain that racked his entire body as he found himself crumpled at the foot of the bullhead. Roman wasn't sure how long it took to snap out of his daze, but by the time he had three more henchmen had been taken out and were lying unconscious or dead on the floor. Two more White Fang were dispatched with ease by a ridiculous spinning kick with at least four rotations before Roman's brain caught up with what happened.

 _That kid ran up and blew me away._ Roman pieced together. The kid didn't teleport, but he ran faster than the fastest huntsmen Roman had ever tangled with. The brat didn't take more than a second to close forty feet. Roman's brain kicked into gear, remembering everything he knew about how to fight speed semblance types. Despite everything going horribly wrong around him Roman was nothing if not observant. As the kid knocked out the tenth faunus amidst dodged gunfire something tugged at Roman's mind, telling him he was missing something. He quickly dismissed it, rationalizing the pain across his whole body was addling his thoughts.

"What the hell…?" Roman accidentally muttered aloud in disbelief. The kid just knocked down his eleventh and twelfth victim, yet somehow he was being swarmed by twenty-four White Fang. The crime lord's eyes scanned the harbor with rapidity that bordered franticness, but he found the sixth faunus the kid had knocked down. Sure enough a few seconds later that faunus got up and reentered the brawl.

Whatever the kid did to Roman had almost knocked him out cold, and he was head and shoulders above the mongrels he was leading. That meant whatever attack the brat used to blindside him couldn't be used consecutively, had some sort of shot count, or was too taxing on the brat's aura to be used again. Most likely the first attack was all just some sort of shock and awe tactic. The grunts were still being used to mop the harbor, but the kid was moving at speed Roman could easily keep up with while doing it. Feeling the situation once again fall back into his control a smile broke across Roman's face as he slammed his fist back, hitting the bullhead with a resounding thud.

"Neo! We got a blonde brat that signed his name on your dance card." Roman said. The only response he received was familiar the sound of clicking heels and the sight of sashaying hips as ya diminutive half pink-half brunette girl walked out of the bullhead and down the ramp, stopping about halfway through and leveling her gaze at him. Roman was more than accustomed to his mute partner and responded to her facial expression as easily as if she had spoken.

"Yeah, Ok, I know!" He said defensively, as if responding to some unspoken phrase. "Look, the kid ain't half bad. He's mopping the floor with the zoo." Roman gestured exasperatedly at the White Fang who were still being laid out on the ground like lawn ornaments, only to rise a short while after. Neo shifted her eyes to look towards the sounds of battle. From there it was obvious to Roman that her interest was beginning to build, manifesting itself as she squared her entire body towards the blonde who was currently the center of the melee.

Roman was closer to Neo than any other person in all of Remnant. With that came a type of understanding that couldn't be and wasn't put into words. By virtue of that understanding, Roman knew when he was going to have to really sell her on a new venture or a plan in which he needed her help. Of course the flip side of that coin meant that he knew when to shut up when he had already made the sale. When someone is ready to buy you don't keep selling, you just shut up and wait for the payout.

Roman's payout was swiftly awarded by a transition; the change between the familiar sound of boots clanking on the metal ramp to the also familiar clicking on asphalt was all Roman needed to hear as a response. He spun his cane and began to walk with her, his aura dealing with the pain as they went.

"The kid can go pretty fast. He closed forty feet in a second, but hasn't gone that fast since. Probably his semblance, so keep an eye out." Roman filled in his partner as they drew closer to the bloodless brawl. Neo didn't even bother nodding, but he knew she heard him. To Roman her excitement had already been palpable, stickily clinging to every molecule of air. He could tell that his words had only intensified that.

Words were no longer necessary. Whatever was nagging at Roman previously had resurfaced, a notion suggesting that he had both noticed and failed to notice some critical detail, but was dismissed once more as immediately as it was noted. Ever the paragon of opportunity, Roman couldn't help but notice the kid's back was towards the two of them as he continued to down the beasts. Still, Roman was a cautious man. Deciding he'd rather not win big or lose big he hefted the barrel of his cane towards the brat's back and pulled the trigger. The resulting shot was by no means silent, but completely out his target's field of vision.

Still, it came as no surprise to Roman that the only response he received was a mere sway of the intended victim's body, his explosive payload jettisoning to the sea before exploding harmlessly. The resulting spray was enough to dampen the the sides of the dock, but failed to reach anyone except for a single knocked out animal, who then promptly rose to his feet.

"You know, that explosion would have hit your own men if I had taken it head on." The blonde said looking over his shoulder, near completely encapsulated by the ten or so grunts that were still standing. Roman shrugged in response.

"They might have been a little worse for wear, but none of them would have died." The blonde eyed him grimly as Roman spoke. The White Fang had stopped moving completely; half to avoid interrupting, and half because their bodies all yearned for rest having each hit the pavement more than once. The only movement was notated by the clicking of heels as Neo slowly strutted around the perimeter the Fang had set up.

"I don't get the sense that you'd mind trading a few of their lives for mine." The blonde squared his body towards Roman. Despite all of his experience, Roman couldn't manage to stifle the cold shiver than ran through his spine as the kid glared at him with those brilliant blue eyes.

"And I get the sense that you've already cemented your idea of who I am, and frankly, I don't care enough to change it." Roman responded as he took a singular step forward with his right foot, angling his body to minimize the area the kid could attack from head on. After leveling Roman with a gaze that was half glower, half inquisition, the kid did exactly what Roman expected… He disappeared.

The brat clearly expected that Roman couldn't keep up with him. Credit where credit is due, he wasn't wrong. However, Roman had lived life in such a way that any lesson worth learning had been carved into the bedrock of his soul. As such he knew that there was a mile of difference between not being wrong, and being right. There was always someone smarter, there was always someone faster, there was always someone stronger… Whenever Roman didn't stack up shoulder to shoulder with an opponent, there was one thing that invariably turned the tide in his favor.

Foresight.

A quarter of a second before the kid disappeared, Roman had chambered a jump. So by the time he registered that the kid was in action, he was already moving. Swinging his cane down at thin air, Roman experienced the same doubt he always did in situations like this.

 _Will I hit? Will I miss? Did I miscalculate?_ Time seemed to freeze for Roman as his uncertainties mounted. In reality, not even one second had passed before his weapon found purchase in what felt like the crook of a neck. The smack of cane meeting flesh was all the vindication Roman needed to wash away his doubt. An instant later he received his second reward. A simple, yet satisfying sound; specifically, the thud of the brat's body hitting the asphalt, skidding forward out of their encirclement until he lost all momentum.

Roman heaved a sigh, letting the wound up tension drain from his body. He could feel Neo's palpable disappointment without even looking at her. To move that fast the kid obviously had aura, not to mention he had more or less admitted to being a student, so Roman didn't expect this was enough put him down for the count. Against his better judgement, Roman glanced over his shoulder to look at Neo. Mute though she was, Roman found that what she wanted to say was all but plastered on her face most of the time.

"Look, the kid almost knocked me out cold through my aura. How was I supposed to know he was a putz?" Roman defended himself from Neo's withering glare.

"Not exactly sure what a putz is, but I'm sure it isn't flattering." Roman spun back to face the kid. True to expectations he wasn't out for the count. Looking at the kid felt surreal to Roman; the kid had flipped onto his back, but wasn't even bothering to look at his assailants, instead opting to stare straight into the sky. Roman had just knocked the brat into a full on face plant, but he wasn't angry. The kid didn't show any emotion that Roman would have expected… Fear, confusion, rage, nothing remotely appropriate to his situation was on the kid's face.

The kid looked like he couldn't decide between being agitated, or bored.

"I'll have to ask Kurama once he gets to the 'p' section… Oh, and congrats I guess. You're better than I expected." The kid said as he did a kick up off the ground, landing square on his feet. "Guess I should play around a bit less..." He mused aloud, his tone self-chastising.

All that happened was the brat raising his arm, holding out a flattened palm as if gesturing to stop. With that action Roman's subconscious finally managed to get the message through to his conscious mind. When the kid had rushed him down and almost knocked him out there had been something funny about the impact of the blow. Roman hadn't bent into a 'U' shape, the natural result of taking a hit to the midsection.

 _The kid never touched me._ Roman realized. _Speed isn't his semblance._ That single thought pushed out all others, filling the entire space of Roman's mind. It didn't even take another second before Roman felt a force acting on his entire body. Roman didn't bother trying to cling to the ground or find something to grab onto; he knew a lost cause when he saw one. That being said, he wasn't exactly one to just roll over and die either.

Roman kicked off the ground just as the force completely overcame him, angling his backwards trajectory ever so slightly to the right. That small adjustment was Roman's first step in finding a path to victory. Originally he would have gone barreling into some mongrel only to then have to deal with whatever specific type of wet animal smell it would produce as they had a compulsory swimming session together.

His effort was proven to not be in vain as two outstretched hands managed to grasp tightly together as Roman was flung through the air. Neo had managed to hook her parasol onto a mooring clamp to prevent herself from being flung into the water. The force that crazy kid was exerting was threatening to dislodge her grip by itself; the idea that she would somehow catch Roman, break his momentum, and not lose her own grip was laughable at best… so obviously that wasn't the plan.

As soon as their hands joined Neo released her grip, allowing them both to be flung back towards the ocean. However, there was no splash, and there was no impact. The only sensation was the familiar sound of shattering glass as Roman's vision went black. Time passed, but Roman had no idea how much or how little. Aside from rudimentary principles Roman didn't even understand where, or if he was right now. As per the norm, that question faded away as reality filled his vision once more. Finding his feet flat on the ground, Roman saw the back of kid's black shirt. The swirling orange symbol seemed to be staring back at him in that moment.

"Teleportation? I don't think so…" The brat muttered without turning to face them. Opting to walk forward the kid continued to talk in a voice barely audible to Roman. "They ceased to exist for a few seconds… dimension hopping? Here?" Anything else the kid might have said after that was too quiet to hear over the sound of sloshing waves. Roman had not yet attacked, partially because he was a bit stunned at how relaxed the kid was, but moreso was trying to find a plan of attack that could incapacitate this kid long enough to hook up the dust crates and get the hell out.

"Here," the kid said, having just bent down by the mooring clamp. As the kid turned to face the two of them, Neo's parasol floated through the air. The surprised expression Neo wore was almost cute as her prized parasol floated into her outstretched hands. The kid reached into a satchel on his waist and pulled out some sort of knife. A few rapid spins of the knife around his finger made the air whistle almost gayly. Grabbing the knife by its hilt, he settled into a combat stance.

"I'm going to cram as much enjoyment into this fight that I wanted to avoid as I can. Do that righteous, pain-in-my-ass, not even my teammate huntress a favor and make this fun. She's going to be getting an unpleasant lecture, but I haven't determined the magnitude yet." The brat requested earnestly.

As Roman stared him down he noticed that his eyes had changed completely. What had previously been wells of blue were now purple ringed with black. Staring into those eyes was like finding that you had done something to move out of the eye of the storm. Preparing to face the might of the maelstrom he had managed to piss off, Roman couldn't help but sigh.

 _I swear I used to be a lucky guy..._


	17. Paid in Blood

**_Greetings and salutations! To people who have been with me from the beginning as well as people who help by reviewing my work, I dedicate this chapter to you! Those who have been here since this little fic started remembered that I used to release small blurbs of chapters every day. Since then I've decided to try and serve you guys a juicy steak every once in awhile instead of scraps of jerky all the time. I don't necessarily think one is right or wrong, just a matter of preference. Today I present the longest chapter in OFNT_** _**to date! Whoo!**_

 _ **That being said I'm not sure if I have this in me anymore. I need to invest my time in things that are more lucrative in order to get by right now. As of now my Pa+reon donations are still at a sad $0.00 dollars, and I don't blame you guys for that. Stuff happened in life and I'm not as financially secure right now as I'd like to be, so I gotta try and sink more time into that. So knowing that this might be my last chapter I wanted to do everything I could to make sure it was a doozy. If anyone does want to donate please search kamorge0 on pa+reon and you will find my familiar mug there. Otherwise I'm going to have to start focusing on a way to eat food XD**_

 _ **With that in mind I want to give a special thanks to the following: Mr. Sasaki Haise, Chaotiquil, Austinpowers97, Swiftrabbit, and Desdelor97. These guys have been long time readers and really provided me motivation when I was first starting out. Second round of thanks go to: YeTianashi, Managehero18, Lightningblade 49 and any others who binged my fic and reviewed multiple times. Reviews and a conversation with you guys were why I started writing in the first place. I wish I didn't have to quit doing this, but my financial situation really went up in flames. Finally a special thanks to two people: A round of applause for Alleria, the original beta of this story. The number of ", but..."s she has had to change could easily pay my rent. Having gone through the past two chapters and having to do it myself is nothing short of agony. Second thanks in this section goes to Fuyuriku, my unofficial beta. You caused Alleria many a grey hair throughout the creation of this fic, and I love you for it. This guy has criticized both Alleria and I in a constructive way and helped us both get better at what we do. She's not with us now, but on behalf of both of us I want to thank you for what you've done for this fic Fuyuriku.**_

 _ **Long ass AN and possibly the last one. If so, it was a hell of a ride guys. I really feel like I got better as my story went on, but maybe that is wishful thinking on my part. So for possibly the last time I present to you Chapter 16 of An Old Fox's New Trick**_.

* * *

 **Chapter 16**

 **Paid in Blood**

Sun wasn't a person to stress too much about finding the perfect solution. Taking it low and slow, or taking it fast and unabashed was more his style. His criteria for choosing between the two was as simple as what he was feeling that day. If he really needed to make something happen, then he would, but that didn't mean he was going to sit around planning for hours and hours. Sun had found that putting enough work into a crappy plan would often get the same results as someone who put a medium amount of work into a great plan. In his eyes where you put your work just came down to a matter of choice, and he chose to put his work into the doing.

Truth be told, watching this orange fox paw annoyedly at the ground with eyes more red than its bloodied teeth was making him reconsider that. If there was any amount of planning that could have stopped him from being guarded by this hellhound, Sun would have done it. Something about the fox made Sun more than just uncomfortable in a primitive sort of way.

Having told Blake Naruto's plan as soon as he caught up, they instantly called the police. Apparently a unit was being dispatched to their location immediately, but they were at least five minutes out. Upon finishing their mission, they both sought to rejoin the fray as quickly as possible. A low, horrifying growl from Naruto's damned fox was all it took to move their advance into the past tense. Sun wasn't sure how Naruto communicated with the thing, yet its persistent agitation whenever Blake tried to move forward made the orders it had received fairly obvious.

"Let us through!" Blake demanded of the fox. Not wanting to redirect her ire towards himself, Sun chose not to point out that the fox was in no way physically obstructing them. The fox was just using their fear of it to deter them from moving forward. Not to say that it wasn't effective, but he wouldn't exactly say the fox was blocking their path.

Blake had been scrapping it out verbally with the fox since it first prevented them from leaving after they called the police. Despite their animalistic traits, faunus could not talk to animals in most cases. Because of that it was hard to say if Blake's pleas, demands, and threats were having any effect on the fox on the receiving end of them. If they were having an effect, it certainly wasn't Blake's desired one. From what Sun could tell the fox's face was practically screaming 'get me out!'. Apparently the fox wanted to deal with Blake as little as she wanted to deal with him, if not less. The humanity the fox displayed in his expression was a little disconcerting to Sun.

Another minute passed with Blake relentlessly hammering the animal to no avail. Suddenly, the fox's ears twitched. Sun remembered that Naruto had said the fox had an incredibly sharp sense of hearing. Whatever it heard finally sparked some movement into their proceedings as the fox started walking forward without so much as a gesture. Blake looked over to Sun, who responded with a bewildered shrug. The fox had made no motions for them to follow, but were they really waiting for a fox to tell them what to do?

Blake, ever the optimist, decided to pursue. Sun didn't waste any time following suit, opting to walk behind Blake and the fox for fear of once again drawing its ire. Obviously that was a fear Blake didn't share. Still, something about that fox just unsettled Sun. Whatever those White Fang had in store for them could not be scarier than this demon fox. Besides, if getting into a fight or two against the bad guys scored him some points with Blake… why not? Naruto didn't look like he had any interest in Blake. The problem was that Sun couldn't tell whether or not she was interested in Naruto.

That train of thought ran deep enough that by the time Sun had worked his way through it the sounds of combat had just become audible. They weren't far off from the place they had previously fled. The increasing volume made it all the easier to recognize the clang of steel, the impact of limbs, and very little else.

 _That's weird…_ Sun thought to himself. The White Fang definitely had guns, and he didn't think they were there for show. Sun could tell by her body language that Blake was growing increasingly frustrated. The fox refused to move faster than a plod, scanning left to right over and over again. Looking at its face, he was amazed that a fox could look so picturesquely annoyed. That emotion was as easy to identify on its face as it would have been on any human. It felt even weirder knowing that it was the second time he had compared the fox to a person in almost as many minutes.

The expressiveness of the fox paled in comparison to how utterly bizarre the scene laid before him now. Before them was a fight so incredible you'd think they had been charged an admission fee just to see it. The first thing Sun noticed was along those lines; this fight was at far too high a level. There was a petite girl with a parasol that hadn't been there when he left. She was teaming up with the guy Blake had taken hostage in an attempt to take Naruto down.

The thing was that calling it an attempt didn't exactly feel like it was giving the word its due credit. _I mean, they are trying pretty hard…_ Sun reevaluated as he watched in awe. The two bad guys were an incredible pair as far as fighting together went. They never did anything but attack him together. Roman slashed his cane down from the front, forcing Naruto to pivot his left foot ninety degrees to the left, dodging by the narrowest of margins.

That wasn't all. The girl had timed a roundhouse kick at the exact same time while she held on to her parasol embedded into the asphalt, taking care of her balance so she could focus on power. The result should have been an incredibly strong kick directly to Naruto's spine. If he tried to do a backflip over the kick then the trajectory of his legs would end up directly in the path of Roman's weapon. This combination attack took place in less than a fraction of a second with no discernable communication to speak of.

It just wasn't enough. Naruto just 'jumped' straight upwards from a standstill. Sun honestly wasn't sure if he jumped or not. He hadn't bent his knees, his body didn't show the tension of someone performing a standstill jump, yet he jettisoned through the air like he did. Having gotten high enough to clear the girl's jump he kicked off her boot into a backflip, sending her leg into her cohort's weapon path.

Still, even that wasn't the end of it. Pushing down on her parasol with the hand she had used to stabilize herself, the girl launched her body into the air. The added vertical height to her entire body made it so that even her plummeting foot cleared over the top of the oncoming weapon. Nevertheless, Naruto saw an opportunity to strike. Her entire body was in the air, anchored to the ground by only a single hand on her parasol. Naruto threw two knives at her midsection, the part of her body that would be most difficult to move given her current position. Despite the masterful tactics that went into orchestrating that lone opportunity to strike, the knives did not find their intended purchase.

The orange haired criminal brought his weapon to a standstill as soon as his partner's boot cleared it. Seeing the oncoming knife attack, he then grabbed his cane with both hands and hefted the entire thing up and into the side of his partner's boot. The momentum from that allowed her to flip one hundred eighty degrees through the air, letting her land on the other side of her parasol. Naruto's knives embedded themselves harmlessly into the asphalt between the pair.

 _Wow…_ Sun thought to himself. He was no slouch at combat, he just preferred to throwing himself in the thick of things. It wasn't like he was an idiot or anything, but that was way too much work for what essentially amounted to nothing happening. The savage grin on Naruto's face was a harrowing indication that he did not agree. It was the face of a predator who had too long been without prey catching whiff of something delectable.

"There are White Fang in the harbor that need to be rounded up and restrained. Go and take care of that while I manage these two. Is that an order you can obey, Blake?" Naruto asked coldly, not even bothering to look their way. Sun winced, obviously Naruto was more pissed than he first let on. Blake nodded and turned to face Sun.

"We need some rope, zip-ties, or something we can bind them with. Do you know how to swim?" She asked. As Sun agreed and started scanning around the harbor for rope he couldn't help feeling like he was going to miss out. You could stop bad guys any time, but how often did you get to see a fight like this promised to be?

* * *

 _I fucking hate this guy_. Neo thought to herself as he barked orders at the kids that had showed up behind them. Neo didn't even bother looking, she didn't give a shit. She hadn't even seen them fight and she knew they weren't a threat. They were both probably super special at their super special huntsmen academies, but she'd have them both eating dirt in a minute if she was taking things any fraction as seriously as she was being forced to take this son of a bitch.

Worst part was that she knew he wasn't taking her seriously. He was playing with them and she knew it, not that she could do shit about it. Wasn't like Neo could read the prick's power level or anything like that, she just knew her kind when she met them. A person who loved fighting, but was bored of it.

She didn't get to fight anyone remotely interesting most of the time. Fact was that she had gotten so bored of fighting weaklings that she just left most of the ops to Roman nowadays. Because of that he only called her out when something special came along.

This 'student' certainly qualified as special. Neo was too smart to buy the whole student bit this kid was selling. He might be enrolled at an academy, she could buy that. There was no damn way he was just a student, though. The only evidence she needed stemmed from the fact that this fight excited him. Being excited itself wouldn't distinguish him from a thousand other muscle-headed morons who loved to brawl, but that itself wasn't the evidence.

What did it was the fact that he had been surprised this excited him.

If you like fighting, you don't get bored of it at seventeen. If fighting ever excited you the only way to get bored of it was by accruing a list of victories so long you couldn't remember half of them if you tried. A list she knew had to have been unblemished for way longer than any fresh meat academy student could have. That just meant the kid wasn't fresh.

That also explained the absolute bitch of a time they were having with him. That last attack was one of many they had launched at him fruitlessly. He hadn't managed to connect on either of them yet. The difference was that Neo could tell that was by choice. Each attack was either stronger, more precise, or more technical than those before it. He was screwing with them and it pissed her off.

Roman may have been inferior to her in combat, but he was smart and had intuition better than anyone she had met. He knew their window was closing just as much as Neo did. This student was strong enough that they both had considered grabbing one of the more normal kids and taking them hostage. She would have if it wasn't for one small detail; Neo had no intention of fucking around with that fox who was guarding their approach to the water.

The student was like her; he wanted a good fight. That fox wanted blood. Any enemy that could give it that was good enough to sink its teeth into. Neo wasn't about to poke that beehive, no matter how long a stick she had.

That left them with their presumed window. The student was obviously cocky. That meant one of two things; he was overconfident and he'd show his full fighting strength soon, or he was dicking around and would eventually set a pace that they couldn't follow. As much as Neo hoped and prayed to whatever unsmiling god their was that he was just an incredibly strong student that would soon hit his limit, she just knew he was screwing with them.

So Neo and Roman had set a bar they weren't rising above. They were both panting with feigned fatigue and hadn't unleashed any of their big guns yet. Just when he thought he had found their level, that was the time to strike.

"Any chance I could get those back?" The student gestured lazily and the knives he had previously tried to skewer her with.

 _Is this guy a moron?_ Neo thought to herself. Then she remembered that he started off this entire fight by throwing her weapon back to her. A concession that irritated her at the time now seemed wholly necessary. The necessity of it pissed her off even more.

"That may happen in school little guy, but it is a whole different thing in the real world." Roman mocked him with an open palmed gesture. The student just chuckled at them. Neo was sure that on top of being strong, this guy was also a mind reader. It was im-fucking-possible that someone could annoy her so much within minutes of meeting her.

"Yeah, yeah. Big scary adult had a hard life and became a criminal because of a cruel and unfeeling world. You're the victim and you learned to survive." The student drolled. He held out both palms and the kunai just floated back to him without a word.

"You know you are a real pain in the ass." Roman ground his teeth. The student didn't need them to get weapons back, it was just another way to screw with them.

"I figured if you played nice I could stretch this out a bit longer. I guess we'll have to call it here." The student said as he settled back into his stance.

"Guess we chose the bad end, huh?" Roman grumbled jokingly. He was always a sharp wit, even while fighting. "Before we close this show up, you got a name?"

"You've given me the best fight I've had in Vale, so I guess if that's what you want as payment… name's Naruto."

"Any chance you let us snag that dust and fly off? You can keep those Fang members your friends are trussing up like a turkey. I'm sure your teachers will be very impressed." Roman asked as he steeled himself for combat.

"You know, I totally would have! Problem is, you already asked for my name. You should cash in favors more carefully next time." Naruto smiled seedily.

"Cheeky, pain in the ass brat." Roman groused. This was their last shot. Being criminals meant that neither of them liked to miss an opportunity. To do so was sacrilege to the few you got in this type of life. Roman often called it 'making the best of a bad hand'. This time around they had a normally unnecessary supplementary factor driving them.

They both wanted to smash this guy's face in.

Without any notice the blonde charged them down. He was still faster than an average huntsman, but this time he was trackable. Roman fired two shots from the barrel of his cane-cannon and neither were aimed at the kid. The two shots were lobbed over his head to hit the White Fang in the harbor being corralled by the water walking fox.

 _Water walking fox?_ Neo thought instantly, then immediately compartmentalized that for later unpacking. Roman must have had a damn good read on Naruto's personality, because both his weapons were thrown at the shells to detonate them midair. How a thrown knife hit a launched shell was just another thing Neo pushed to the side for later. The point was that the kid was now weaponless.

The downside being that was all they could do before the distance was closed completely. Naruto led with a telephone punch into Roman. His suit fluttered from the air pressure the punch created despite completely dodging the blow. Neo followed up by unsheathing her sword from its parasol scabbard and horizontally striking the blade at Naruto's abdomen.

Roman swung parallel to Neo's strike from the opposite direction. Both strikes were deep and overlapped, leaving no room for escape. To their attack's credit, he didn't even try. Both attacks were set to be intercepted by his hands. Still, blade against flesh was a trade Neo would make any day.

Regrettably, it was not a trade she got to make. Both of their weapons rebounded as if they hit a solid wall. _His semblance!_ Neo realized. He had only used it in very minor or colossal ways, so they both had hoped Naruto didn't have the refined control to do something like this.

That mistake cost Roman a rib. The muted crunching of bone could be heard as Naruto's uppercut dig its way into Roman's bottom rib. It was the kind of punch that should have been meant for a face blow. That was because it built its power through the momentum of the upward swing. By the time it was at the first rib it should have had essentially no force. However, no matter what Neo's sense dictated, reality was immutable, and that blow had the power to break Roman's rib through his aura.

"Oof!" Naruto exclaimed, donning a crooked grin as he 'sympathized' with Roman's pain. Roman had doubled over and was holding the point of impact. Although the two of them still had Naruto perfectly flanked Neo doubted that Roman would be able to apply any pressure in his condition.

"You do not fight... like you're from around here kid... let me tell you." Roman's forced out his wit in between labored breaths, but there was more to it than that.

"People keep telling me that. I'll make sure to pick up some sort of metal weapon that turns into a gun. I've never seen a bullet do anything, so considering how much people fire them around here it must be a lot of fun." Naruto bantered back casually, standing at ease despite being in what should have been a compromising tactical position.

"Well then send me… your scroll details… I'll make sure to get you a great dea-" Roman's snark broke down into a hacking cough. Roman was trying to say something and Neo heard it loud and clear. The lack of blood in his cough meant he hadn't suffered a punctured lung and the staggered breath meant the injury was large enough to persist past immediate aura healing. Best case scenario he had a bad fracture, worst case the rib had shattered.

The message was loud and clear. They needed to get out.

Neo lunged for Roman's hand from behind Naruto, only to find herself being blown back by a now familiar invisible force. Naruto had used his semblance enough that Neo was ready for it at this point. That wasn't to say she could do anything to resist it though. She took the best course of action available to her and tried to stay on her feet while slamming her hands on the asphalt to create friction. She slid back twenty feet or so, but managed to stay grounded the whole time. Her aura crackling around her hands as it prevented any damage.

"You know it's rude to leave a show once its started." Naruto chastised her as he walked forward, stopping only once he was perfectly halfway between Roman and Neo.

"Having you in on our... mutual brainwaves is a bit creepy, kid. How'd you know... what Neo was going for?" Roman asked doggedly as he started drudging clockwise around Naruto to close the distance.

"I'm not an idiot?" Naruto replied as he moved to keep himself in between the two of them, firmly implying anyone who wouldn't have seen that coming would have been one. "Your rib is hanging on, but only just. I distributed the force of my punch across a wider surface area to try and create more than just one impact fracture… anyways you're down for the count and she wants to teleport you both out of here. I only pretended to give her a chance to do so because I was curious if she could use it consecutively. If she could blink over to you and then teleport again that would be pretty impressive, looks like that isn't on the table for her quite yet. Figured that would be a bit too difficult to use consecutively."

"You are seriously... one uncute kid." Roman practically had to force the words out. Neo was looking for an opportunity to get to him and had started rotating counterclockwise. Geographically the distance between them was shrinking, but she had no idea how to get past Naruto and make physical contact with Roman. From her vantage point she could see that about twenty-four members of the White Fang had been tied up.

With the five members that were lying in small puddles of blood, that left only one last Fang to be captured. If his three allies, especially that fox, were to join the fray then Neo would have to abandon Roman for now. She had done that before and was reluctant to do it again. Even if she could teleport she would need to find where he was being held first to do it. As she thought both of their movements had put them ten feet from each other when Roman stopped moving entirely, Naruto still standing directly between them.

"Luckily for me… I'm a seriously… nasty adult!" Roman yelled as he turned his cane towards the downed Fang members on the ground. He fired a shot for each of them, depleting the remainder of his ammo. Neo didn't understand why Roman fired on the Fang this time, but she knew Roman was making a play. She didn't need to understand what he was doing to know she needed to surge forward.

Neo broke out into a sprint while sheathing her blade into its parasol scabbard. By now she had expected to hear five sequential explosions. Instead, there was nothing but the sound of water and her beating footsteps. A sideways glance revealed that all of the shells were suspended in the air and slowly floating towards Naruto. He had turned to face the two of them and was preparing to kick Neo away.

Neo popped open her parasol and flung it towards Naruto's face to obstruct his vision while he kicked. If she had done anything less the opacity of her parasol would have been enough to reveal her. Thus everything came down to a two-thirds chance to win. She could jump over her parasol to avoid the kick, she could charge straight through thinking he would change his leg's trajectory, or she could dive into the pavement.

Neo hated gambles.

 _We did everything we could and the best we could manage is slightly better than a damned coinflip._ Neo admonished herself in agitation. She picked the option she thought would work the best, but she wasn't sure it was the right one. Roman might have built some sort of character profile on Naruto and used it to choose his path. That's just the kind of calculating bastard he was. Neo's reasoning was much more simple than that.

 _Round kicking low feels fucking terrible. I mean, there are so many better kicks to target the lower body! Nobody would ever practice a roundhouse kick that's not even above the shins!_ So Neo dove towards the payment as low as she could go and outstretched her arms. Roman had hobbled slightly closer and began to fall down. Neo worried that Naruto would see that and lower his kick. She didn't understand why instead of going down his leg shot up.

She didn't have any idea what was going through Naruto's mind until she looked back to Roman. The clever bastard had lifted his cane up as high as he could as he went down, disguising the intention of his fall as mere accident. For all Neo knew it could have been, but it was also the quickest way for the injured Roman to cover horizontal distance in a pinch. In perfect sync the two of them smacked into the pavement and Neo grabbed onto Roman's cane.

"Shouldn't have shown us that you… could pull things to you." Roman jeered mockingly at Naruto from the asphalt. Neo didn't know what Roman was talking about. He had used his semblance in an attempt to knock them backwards into the water, he used it to give back her parasol, and he used it to break their combine attack once. Each and every one of those times Naruto had used his semblance to push things away. Neo couldn't figure out when Naruto had used his semblance for anything b-

 _Holy fuck I am dumb._ Neo groaned silently. Naruto had used his semblance to pull his knives towards himself when they refused to return them. If she had gone tit for tat and returned his weapons to him like he had hers, Roman might not have found an answer. Just another example of how self-interest was the way to go.

As if to interrupt Neo's thoughts, Naruto pivoted and lifted his leg into an axe kick and Neo activated her semblance. "Figured that would be a bit too difficult to use consecutively." In true Torchwick fashion, he managed to finish off his last jab without pausing for breath. Neo knew exactly what he was thinking at that moment because he had once told her.

 _You always want to make sure the last thing you say to an opponent makes them think they've screwed up. It'll unsettle them and eat away at them over time. That way you have something you can take advantage of the next time you face off against them._ Neo recalled what Roman had once said to her. She looked to Naruto's face to find their reward. They might not have fulfilled their mission, but Roman sure as hell pissed Naruto off.

At least that was what Neo thought had happened. The last thing she saw before his kick landed was a warm and genuine smile. He didn't look sad, distraught or abashed. Hell, he looked downright proud! As the shattering of glass was heard and her vision started to go out there was only one thing on Neo's mind.

 _I REALLY fucking hate this guy._

* * *

 _Well that was fun._ Naruto remarked fondly to himself as he deposited Roman's shells he had gathered to his hand into his belt satchel. In reality he didn't have the same problems with the tendō path that Nagato did. The tendō path was incredibly hard on the chakra system, that was a fact. Normally the stronger tendō path jutsu you used, the longer your chakra system would be out of commission for. In Naruto's case, between his Uzumaki chakra and three bijū there wasn't all that much that could overload his chakra system.

 _It just isn't fun if they have no way to win._ He remarked wistfully as he picked up the abandoned parasol. He liked the workmanship put into it, even if he wasn't exactly an expert on parasols. He could tell when it touched his face after the girl threw it at him that the parasol material was something special. It was flexible enough to fold down as a parasol would, yet the material looked strong enough to stop a bladed weapon.

Naruto wasn't all that worried about letting them get away either. As far as criminals went he found the pair of them to be almost charming. The feminine man talked a tough game, but Naruto got the impression he didn't like killing people. On the other hand the short one was pretty cute and pretty competent to boot. Her silence gave a soft and demure appearance to her personality. He imagined she might have had a pretty similar personality to Hinata as he twirled the parasol in his hands.

"I think I'll keep this." Naruto remarked aloud. Ideally he'd just seal it away in a storage scroll. With everything that had happened recently he figured he shouldn't use any new techniques unless he had to. Even then he would do his best to hide it like he had on the roof. Blake had started approaching him, leaving Sun with the Kurama and the White Fang. He decided to heft it over his right shoulder in a similar form to casual resting position for one's sword. Hey! It was a sword after all! The predominantly pink and white parasol clashed horribly with Naruto's orange and black color scheme.

"Your fox rounded up all the fleeing White Fang in the water." Blake started as if reporting, which Naruto guessed she was. He was willing to bet money she wouldn't be able to contain herself like that for long. "After the fox would get close to them they'd just swim over to us and sit perfectly still, except for their shivering." Blake stated dubiously. Naruto picked up on her obviously implied question and decided to just shrug it off.

"Cold night for a swim in the harbor. Anyone would probably be shivering." He said, fully aware of the actual reason they were shivering. Naruto started to stare directly at one of the buildings that were surrounding the harbor.

"You know that's not what I me-"

"Go back and guard the White Fang until the police get here. I think they left someone behind to catch us when we aren't expecting it." Naruto commanded Blake. She looked dissatisfied, but begrudgingly complied as she jogged back towards Sun and Kurama. Apparently part of her had enough sense to feel guilty about what she had done. "I know you're there."

Naruto had spoken directly towards the building he had previously been staring at. His detection abilities outside of sage mode had improved over the years, even if they were nowhere near as good as they were in sage mode. So when a fairly sizable (not to mention strange) energy source had parked itself atop a building he had assumed someone was going to try to shoot him. In all honesty he was kind of looking forward to seeing a bullet hit someone. If the aforementioned someone had to be himself, so be it.

"I'm not going to hurt you. All the bad guys have been taken care of. On the other hand if you are a bad guy… you really missed your shot dude." Naruto couldn't help but give a short chortle at the idea of some bad guy holed up there all this time, waiting for him to drop his guard.

"Well all right then. I will be coming down now." A feminine voice came from the top of the building. The strength of her aura was one indicator to be sure. The way she jumped straight down a five story building definitely cemented the idea that she was a huntress of some sort. Naruto just didn't understand why she didn't come out to fight when she arrived. Was she a coward of some sort?

"Are you a suspicious person?" The girl asked, her brilliant green eyes opened so wide they seemed unnatural.

"I don't think you're going to catch many fish with that net." Naruto chuckled. This one was certainly an oddball. He had been worried because her hair color was similar to Roman's. He quickly dismissed it, doubting that anyone raised by a guy like that would be this particular type of peculiar.

"But I'm not looking for fish. What net are you talking about?" The girl asked, her head tilting slightly to the left. She looked like a confused puppy that didn't understand why you had called its name.

"Uhhh… it's an idiom… I mean that I don't think a suspicious person would ever admit to being suspicious."

"Oh! I never thought about it like that! I learned something new today!" She unreservedly expressed her gratitude by clasping her hands together and bowing.

"Anyone ever tell you that you're a weird one?" Naruto asked with a chuckle. The girl furiously nodded her head.

"Seventy-eight people have given me similar feedback to this date. Unless that was a way of also saying that I am weird, in which case you would be the seventy-ninth person." She answered cheerily.

"I guess that means I'm number seventy-nine then." Naruto replied amiably. Having just dealt with someone who tried to shoot his own people eight separate times he was finding her quirkiness more refreshing than anything else.

"Does that mean seventy-nine people do not like me? Is being weird a bad thing?" She asked. Naruto normally would have just shrugged, but she was just too precious to give his normal treatment.

"I think some people don't like weirdness, I'm just not one of them. Being weird can be pretty cool in its own way."

"Does that mean you'll be my friend!?" She gushed back at him as soon as he finished speaking. Naruto didn't know if Gyūki was actually trying to talk to him, or he was just imagining his obnoxious prodding in the back of his mind.

"I'm probably not the best person to have as a friend." Naruto attempted to rationalize for her. The girl was visibly put out.

"Oh… if you say so." She sulked. Naruto felt a bit guilty. Friendship was a bit of a tricky thing for him to promise. He couldn't even say he had a friend in this world yet. Eager to move the conversation away from the present topic, Naruto decided to ask the most pressing question on his mind.

"So why exactly were you hiding up on the building?" He asked. Although she was still a bit sullen, she answered nonetheless.

"Well, I like to go out on walks to learn things. There are lots of things I don't know and I've found the best way to learn things is by seeing lots of things. I actually made a friend on my walk today! She was super nice, and fun, and-"

"I'm really happy for you, but can you get to the building part." Naruto ushered her along.

"Oh! That is what you asked me, wasn't it? Well I was on my walk and I heard an explosion coming from this area and I decided I should investigate. I was worried that somebody might have hurt themselves, so I headed straight over here. When I got here I wanted to get up someplace tall to see exactly what was going on. That's when I saw you fighting two people."

"That makes sense." Naruto rationalized. Gaining a vantage point before jumping into the thick of things was a pretty good 'best practice' to have. There was still something about the situation that bugged him though. "You're a huntress right?"

"That is correct! I am from Atlas Academy!" She answered proudly.

"Why didn't you jump in and lend me a hand? I mean, I had it handled, don't get me wrong... just isn't that normally what a huntress would do?" Naruto asked with no small amount of confusion. He couldn't imagine anyone he knew at Beacon taking that approach. Blake barely obeyed his order to round up the White Fang because she wanted to help him fight.

"To be honest, I did not understand what you were doing. I came to the conclusion that you must have been trying to teach the two criminals something." Her tone implied that she wasn't confident she had analyzed the situation correctly. Naruto wasn't sure how she analyzed the situation at all with a conclusion like that.

"Errr… why did you think that?"

"Well, I noticed that you were over one-hundred times more powerful than them, so I figured that you we-"

"Okokokokokok- What did you just say!?" Naruto cut her off just to hiss at her, quieting his voice so that Blake's ears hopefully wouldn't pick up their conversation.

"Well, I noticed that you were over on-"

"Okokokokokok- I meant why would you say that!?" Naruto stopped her once more and corrected his previous question.

"Oh! That is what you meant! Well I am able to detect and measure aura, so when I compared your values I realized how much stronger you were than them. To be exact you were exactly three-hundred an-"

"STOP!" Naruto pleaded in a whisper so loud it would be impressive if Blake couldn't hear him. The orange haired girl stopped and tilted her head like a puppy once more, her beautiful green eyes the picture of confusion. The wheels in his brain were churning, his engine was firing on all cylinders, every brain cell at his disposal was desperately searching for a way out of this quagmire. When he found one he didn't even stop to second guess it.

"Earlier you asked if you wanted to be friends, right?" Naruto asked her desperately. Her head bobbed up and down furiously. "Great! I've reconsidered my previous stance, I would love to be your friend!"

"You said you wouldn't make a very good friend. Am I supposed to want a friend who isn't very good?" She asked in complete seriousness. She was just so innocent that Naruto couldn't take advantage of her like that, however much part of him wanted to.

"You want all your friends to be good friends." He admitted. Penny nodded in understanding, and understanding that then cause her to begin to frown. "But don't be sad! I promise I'll be a great friend!"

"But you said-"

"I know what I said! I was just… uhh… being shy!" Naruto jumped on the first possible excuse he could find.

"Shy?" She asked.

"Yeah! I'm just not very good at making friends, so I was a little bit shy when you asked. I promise I'll be a great friend!"

"A great friend?" She asked apprehensively.

"Yes! The best friend you can imagine!" Naruto assured her desperately, firmly at the end of his rope.

"Then I would love to be your friend! What is your name?" She asked with a smile so bright it could light a concert hall. Naruto heaved a sigh so heavy it could have sailed a boat.

"Naruto. What's yours?"

"Penny Polendina! If you prefer, you can call me best friend!" She continued to beam.

"Best friend?" Naruto asked, utterly exhausted, yet still apprehensive. The answer she gave was exactly what he had expected.

"Well, you said you would be the best friend I could imagine. That means you must be my best friend, right?" Penny asked him nervously. Naruto was thoroughly done at this point and decided to follow the advice about the tree that bent. Kami knew if he kept trying to explain things he was going to break.

"Yeah, best friends. If it's all the same to you I think I'll call you Penny." Penny couldn't have smiled any wider if she tried. Naruto saw Blake getting restless from the corner of his eye. "Look, Penny, that thing about how strong I am is a super big secret. You can't tell anyone, ANYONE at all. You got it?" Penny tilted her head, her wide green eyes basically had 'why not' written across them.

"You see, that's my biggest secret. The thing about friends is that we have to keep each other's secrets. That's one of the rules of being friends." Naruto laid it on as thick as possible. He had no interest in knowing exactly how much stronger than he was than the people of Remnant, but he had even less interest in anyone else knowing. His methods did make him feel a bit dirty. He was desperate, OK!

"I don't keep secrets from my father. I tell him everything I find when I go on my walks." She replied in a concerned tone. Naruto shook his head as furiously as she had nodded it earlier.

"You can't tell anyone, not even your father! Friends keep secrets, it brings them closer together." Naruto tried the first reason that popped into his head, no matter how fragile. As luck would have it, he hit the motherload.

"Closer as friends? Best-er friends?"

"Best-est friends!" Naruto assured her in a voice that he hoped wasn't as hysterical as he felt. Then she said something that made Naruto think she was far too pure for this world

"I don't know… my father told me that lying is bad."

"It isn't lying, I'm just asking you to not talk to people about it!" Naruto assured her. Penny shook her head in rejection.

"The definition of lying is to deceive somebody by means of mis-"

"Yeah, I know!" Naruto cut her off in frustration, having gotten the same lines from Kurama earlier today. They weren't exactly his favorite things to begin with, but never before had he held such animosity for dictionaries. Somehow the police still weren't here, a fact that was obviously making Blake antsy as she shuffled around in the corner of Naruto's eye. Considering his current predicament, the police not yet arriving provided Naruto with a supreme sense of relief.

Par for the course, Naruto happened to notice Kurama's ears flick from his position next to Blake and Sun. Within a few seconds the sounds of sirens slowly started to fill the air. Naruto felt his stomach do a somersault as he imagined this girl telling the police he was trying to teach criminals, or even worse than that started blabbing about him being at least hundreds of times stronger than everyone else.

"Penny, I absolutely promise you that keeping your friend's secret is not a bad thing. Just so I can prove that to you, I promise not to tell anyone that you're a robot." Naruto didn't think Penny's eyes could go any wider, boy did he get proved wrong as her eyelids climbed up so high he couldn't even make them out on her face.

"How did you know that? Nobody is supposed to know that!" She initially asked in a timid tone before building up into a frightened exclamation. He hadn't been lying when he told Ozpin that he knew the difference between simulated aura and the real deal. Naruto held out his hands open-palmed and made a calming motion.

"Look, as far as I'm concerned you're just as much a person as anyone else. Met a guy who put his heart inside a puppet so he could live forever. He was just as much a person as myself, you, or anyone else." The guy was also a mass murderer and ultimately got his grandmother killed, so it wasn't exactly all good news. Naruto deemed those details incredibly unessential as the sirens were almost upon them.

"You think I'm a person? Even though I wasn't born normal?" Penny asked him, her voice almost begging for validation. Naruto had seen people's demons enough to recognize one when it was placed in front of him. So he took a deep breath in and then slowly released it…

Then he did it again just to be sure.

"'Course you're a person! We're friends, aren't we?" He beamed at her. Naruto knew he wasn't the authority on life, the universe, and philosophy. Still, if he could put a pure girl's mind at ease by pretending to be, why not? She thought, and therefore she was. Naruto didn't know if that was the objective truth of all reality, but it was good enough for him.

The smile she gave him as she threw her arms around him in a joyous embrace was more than enough to assure himself that his choice was the right one.

Even if the squeeze of her hug was more than a bit painful.

* * *

She was torn. Blake felt like she didn't know which way was up anymore and had no idea how to figure it out. She knew she was skilled, probably top five in her class to be sure. She had trained at Beacon and she had trained with the White Fang. If she ignored whatever hellscape Naruto grew up in she would have been the huntress with the most field experience of the first years. Not only that, Blake was smart. Working in the field and fighting people stronger than her had granted her a more flexible view of combat than most.

She was strong, she was experienced, and she was smart.

And yet she knew she would have lost.

Assuming Sun was as strong as she was, handling thirty White Fang and Roman would have been a stretch by itself. That small woman with the parasol might have been even stronger than Roman. When you put the two of them together they were immensely stronger than they were as individuals.

This was her mission, her fight! Yet all she did was get kidnapped by a fox and brought to safety while Naruto handled everything himself. Part of her was bitter because she knew she could have helped him, but she was even more bitter that she knew he didn't need it. He could have managed this entirely on his own, she could have died without his help.

Even the small task of rounding up the White Fang he had presumably knocked into the harbor's water was done primarily by his fox companion. Blake hadn't felt like this much of a disappointment in a long time.

As she 'guarded' the completely immobilized and restrained White Fang she watched Naruto have an incredibly enthusiastic conversation with an orange haired girl, at least if their body language was anything to go by. She couldn't hear them because of how close they were to the slapping sounds of water. Honestly she was too exhausted to care at this point.

"Well, we stopped the White Fang!" Sun attempted to improve her mood. He had opted to sit down while they waited for the authorities. Naruto's fox companion was serving as a more than ample deterrent for any escape plans anyways.

"That is an incredibly liberal usage of the term _we_." He failed miserably. Sun scratched his head and did a kick up off the ground so he could walk around and face her.

"We made it through alright, didn't we? We didn't exactly get to do any heavy lifting, but we were only able to stop this because you made a move. Naruto was ready to pack up and call it quits, I sure as hell wasn't going to argue with him. It was you who tried to do something about it. I think that's pretty cool." He reassured Blake. Contrary to his expectations, the only thing she felt was more confused.

"He could have handled that by himself. He basically did handle that by himself! Why was he ready to give up if he is so strong?" Blake couldn't figure that out.

"He did say that he couldn't guarantee our safety if we went down there. Maybe that was enough to make him think the whole thing was just too risky?"

"We're training to become the defenders of Remnant! I don't think we're going to get that many missions completely devoid of risk!" She sniped incredulously. Sun immediately attempted to placate her.

"I'm not arguing with you!" Sun reassured her hastily. "That's just the only thing I could come up with. I don't know why the dude was so worried. How strong is he anyway? Most of the White Fang were trying to swim away."

"He's a monster…" One of the White Fang practically shivered the words out. There was murmured ascent across all of their ranks. Blake had expected the White Fang to be far more vocal than they had been. Instead of receiving a tirade about how she was a race traitor they had sat there in absolute silence. Sun had helped her tie their feet and hands together so they couldn't escape. The lot of them had been so quiet it was like they were gagged.

Blake noticed Kurama's ears twitch before she could ask any follow up questions. Remembering what Naruto had said she was unsurprised to find her own ears doing the same thing not shortly afterwards. More than fifteen minutes after they had called them the authorities had finally arrived. The cacophony of sirens drawing closer was a clear indicator that they had mobilized in mass. Within seconds a horde of police cars had pulled into the harbor.

"Blake!" An unmistakable voice cut through the blaring sirens. A black and red blur shot through her field of vision before colliding into her, almost knocking her into the ground as she found herself embraced in a nigh suffocating hug.

"Ruby?!" Blake choked out in surprise as her aura prevented the air from being knocked out of her. Her diminutive team leader had latched onto her and showed no signs of letting go.

"You've been busy." Yang's voice sounded out, followed by a whistle. Looking over Ruby's head Blake found Yang as well as the rest of team NNVR. The members of the other team gathered around Naruto, but Blake didn't see the orange haired girl anywhere in sight. The only person missing was-

"I'm glad to see you were not injured." Weiss's voice cut through sounds far louder with complete effortlessness. Blake found herself shrinking only to see that Weiss was doing the same. The overconfident heiress who normally struck an upright posture that screamed elitism currently looked small and uncertain, nervous even.

"Weiss… I-" the heiress cut her off with an outstretched hand gesturing her to stop. Weiss didn't say anything, Blake was silent, Yang physically moved out of their way, and Ruby held her all the tighter. It wasn't an awkward silence, it couldn't have been with the small army of police noisily exiting their vehicles. That didn't change that it certainly felt like one.

Weiss didn't take a deep breath and she didn't clench her fists. Any other signs of preparation that a normal person might have shown were totally and completely absent. Despite that, Weiss' posture shot back to its normal immaculateness as if she had gone through every one of them.

"Why did you join them?" Weiss asked Blake pointedly, staring into her eyes. An officer was coming over, presumably why Weiss had chosen to use a pronoun, but Naruto intercepted him. As his team had moved closer to hers she could faintly hear him saying something about him being the leader and answering all questions. She knew he was just trying to make sure her team had space. Feeling Ruby's already strong grip tighter around her Blake prepared herself.

"I couldn't do nothing about the way my people were being treated. They were about protecting faunus who were being abused or oppressed."

"Why did you leave?" Weiss asked without pause.

"They started to care more about revenge than equality." Blake answered. "I didn't want to blame humans for our problems. I just wanted everyone to treat each other like the people we are."

"Mmmmm…" Weiss hummed. There was a pause where neither of them spoke. It didn't last long, but it felt like it did. "I suppose that means you did nothing wrong. Which means it is I that needs to apologize." Weiss bowed her head before her. "I'm sorry Blake."

"W-what?" Blake panicked. She expected Weiss to be furious with her, to begrudge her, she half expected her to call an officer over to arrest her. An apology wouldn't has even made her top hundred of things to expect.

"They have caused my family no end of trouble over the years, especially as of late." Weiss gestured to the opened shipping containers. Sure enough, it was SDC dust inside of them. "But that doesn't mean anyone who has ever been a part of them is bad. It doesn't even mean everyone who is part of them now is bad. I acted like merely being associated with them was enough to make them irredeemable trash." Blake grimaced at the harsh assessment, especially because she knew Weiss had meant every word.

"But-" Weiss started again, "if we treat people like they can never be redeemed, then they will begin to believe it themselves. I think… I think if we want to stop this hate between humans and faunus then we will all have to be willing to forgive each other… to offer another chance, no matter how hard that is."

"Boy are my ears burning." Naruto joked. Blake must have been more zoned in on Weiss than she thought because team NNVR had managed to approach with a whole squad of police in tow without her noticing. "Cops gotta book these guys. I hope they didn't give the two of you much lip."

Blake hadn't realized it at first, but the White Fang had been completely silent, even during her conversation with Weiss. They didn't directly say she was a member of the White Fang, that was true. Still, the implications were pretty thick to just ignore. She expected at least some of them to say something, yet none of them had said anything. She couldn't see their faces and still they projected a palpable fog of fear. As the police cuffed them and unbound their feet they didn't even try to put up a fight.

Naruto's fox circled them the entire time.

"Du skl cld a mlhed fr us." Ruby mumbled, her face pressed so tight against Blake that her words couldn't be made out.

"Oh my gosh that is so precious!" Yang cooed, her big sister instincts taking in as she took out her scroll to take a picture. Ruby glowered menacingly at her sister. At least that was her intent; she looked more like a pouting puppy than anything else.

"The school called a bullhead for us. We contacted Professor Port and told him there may be a situation. The professor decided to dispatch 'Beacon's best rescue crew' in his own words." Ren clarified, clearing up multiple confused faces.

"How did you guys find us anyways? Sun, by the way." Sun asked before introducing himself. All eyes turned to Nora as she was threatening to bust a gut with her laughter. Actually the entirety of NVR and RWY were smiling like they were sharing some inside joke.

"We didn't really have any idea of where to look." Pyrrha confessed with mirth tugging at her lips. "Naruto had told us all to go back to Beacon, but your team really wanted to see you Blake. We had wandered around together for quite awhile when we decided we should return to Beacon for the night when all of these police cars showed up heading to the same place."

"Nora declared that if we followed the police we would find our leader, and Blake by proxy." Ren chuckled. "I have to admit that I am not as surprised as I thought I would be that she was right."

"I'd be more pissed off if that wasn't such a fair assessment." Naruto grumbled in reluctant agreement. Everyone laughed either with or at him, Sun included. Even Blake couldn't completely stifle a small laugh.

The sound of bullheads approaching overhead was enough to inspire momentary panic for Blake. Her hand was halfway to grabbing Gambol Shroud before she realized it was most likely the rescue team Beacon had dispatched. The small aircrafts began their descent towards the ground having chosen a flat and clear landing zone about a hundred feet off.

Now even from that height it should have been obvious that the ground was swarming with police, it should have been obvious that any combat that may have happened had subsided, it should have been obvious that the situation was under control. Really, it should have been! As the doors to one of the bullheads was slammed open despite still being a hundred feet in the air Blake worried that something was going wrong. When a person jumped out said bullhead she was almost certain something was wrong.

When said person landed with such force that he cracked the asphalt beneath him and even from a hundred feet she could make out a perfectly trimmed and waxed walrus mustache she knew something was wrong.

"Are you students in need of rescue?!" Port's impossibly loud voice boomed, causing every single officer, student, and White Fang head to turn to him. Nine students, a fox, and several officers stared at him with faces that could have been chiseled out of stone. All but the most socially inept could have seen the word 'no' written on each and every one of their faces.

Port stood there beaming nonetheless.

* * *

Ruby always liked bullheads. She liked machines, weapons, video games, and a lot of other stuff like that. The hum of an engine or the whirring of gears were both peaceful sounds to her. As she rode back to Beacon in a bullhead with Professor Port (who was somehow snoring) and her team she was suffused with a comforting sense of peace. Her team was back together and that was awesome. It had started to rain on their way back to Beacon, but even that added a sense of tranquility.

Blake turned her head to face Ruby's partner. The bullhead they were on was a small class one primarily meant for huntsmen use. Yang and Ruby occupied the left and right seats on one side respectively. Blake sat across from Yang and Weiss sat across from Ruby.

The last seat was more of a bench that was positioned closest to the pilot. There were grooves in the bench that could be used to secure a variety of specially made equipment boxes. The designer opted to go with a grooved bench instead of setting up a specific equipment area so that the user could set it up for whatever best suit their needs at the time.

Need a bunch of ammo? The bench could be equipped with up to four standard sized equipment boxes for ammo, one for each member of a standard team. Need to transport sensitive technology? The manufacturers made a IR shielded, radio wave shielded, lead lined containers that ranged from ¼ of the bench size to as large as the bench itself. Technically, you could even do what Port is doing and sit on the bench itself if you stripped it down to just the bench itself. Ruby always found it funny that the designer didn't think of that. She knew he didn't because there were no seat belts anywhere for the bench. Ruby liked to use that as a lesson that sometimes you just forget the simplest of things.

That was just the kind of person Ruby was. She loved talking to her team, but she also loved to work on her weapon or read a magazine feature about the designer of a bullhead. Right now she was just happy to have her team back together.

"Weiss?" Blake prompted Ruby's partner.

"Yes?"

"I was just wondering…" Blake thumbed at the hem of her shirt as if hoping it was going to produce the words to finish her sentence. "Where did that come from?"

"That being?" Weiss asked. Her tone wasn't agitated, but it didn't sound normal either. Ruby thought it might have been a little embarrassed, though she couldn't figure out why.

"Your apology?" Blake asked, sounding a little embarrassed herself.

"Well I decided that the way I had been acting was inappropriate. Not only is it possible that there are good people in the White Fang, much like I said earlier," Weiss reminded her, "but everybody makes mistakes besides that. I might not be unduly keen on forgiving the White Fang for what they have done… honestly I do not know if I ever will be. That being said, if I condemn both the White Fang and all those who support them then the only thing I will accomplish is spurring them further down that path."

"Well, that and I set her straight." Yang chimed in cheekily.

"Yang!" A furious blush broke across Weiss' face, made all the more prominent by her pale complexion.

"Yang?" Blake asked in stark disbelief.

"Et tu, Blake!" Yang exclaimed, her face wrought with complete and utter betrayal.

"I'm sorry! It's just… Yang?" Ruby couldn't help but giggle, earning the immediate ire of her sister.

"I helped raise you, you know! I could totally set Weiss straight."

"And set me straight she did." Weiss agreed, the previously embarrassed heiress was now wearing a saccharine smile. "I mean, she needed to use someone else's words to do the job, but who am I to quibble?" Yang growled at Weiss' obvious goading.

"She told us a story that Naruto told her when we were out looking for you." Ruby explained to her confused teammate. Now that she knew Blake was a faunus it was easy to see Blake's cat ears droop beneath her bow. How hadn't she noticed that before?

"Technically he told that punk Winchester, but Pyrrha and I were along for the ride too." Yang clarified.

"What is going on between the two of them?" Weiss asked curiously, switching topics. "Naruto and Cardin that is. Pyrrha made it sound like the two of them were very close… We spent a long time looking for you and happened upon NVR doing the same. We had a lot of time to talk" Weiss explained to Blake, a lilt of teasing ire in her voice. Blake wilted slightly in guilt.

"I've seen them training pretty hard out by the track. Well, at least I'm going to call it training. Honestly it looked more like slave driving from a distance." Yang laughed with a grin on her face that spoke to the fact she had not completely forgiven Cardin for trying to throw sap into her hair.

"Pyrrha really seems sad about it too." Ruby kicked her feet back and forth restlessly. "Apparently Naruto hasn't spent much time with his team recently. Other than classes he hasn't been showing up back to their room until after everyone has gone to sleep. Then he wakes up and leaves before they can talk to him."

"I didn't think he'd do something like that… Has he always been like that with his team?" Blake asked. Ruby was the one to answer this time.

"He got a bit more distant after we all hung out that one night, the one with the questions." Ruby specified. "I don't know if I'm imagining it or not, but it feels like maybe he got worse a day or two after that?"

"I do not know if he is getting worse per se... the way his team makes it sound is like he is less present. After everything he has said about leadership you would think he would spend more time with the team he leads." Weiss criticized indignantly. Yang sighed before she too chimed in.

"I know the dude is really stressed about the headmaster. Apparently Ozpin has been nagging him pretty relentlessly since he came to Beacon. He didn't say it to me directly, but I got the impression that it's causing him a lot of stress."

"He's incredibly powerful, he's a more than competent leader — at least in the field," Blake added upon receiving an arched eyebrow from Weiss, "and I've never even heard of the place that he's from. When you pop out of nowhere and beat someone like Pyrrha Nikos you are just asking for a lot of attention." Blake's analysis on that point was pretty hard to argue with.

"Maybe we should try to talk to him?" Ruby suggested. "If we got to know him better he might feel more comfortable being around us." Yang adjusted her posture to sit a little more forward in her chair before she spoke.

"I'm definitely gonna veto that. He's partially stressed out because Professor Ozpin is looking into his past, so our solution is to look into his past?" Yang snorted at the idea. "The best way to get closer to him is by not getting closer to him."

"You are going to have to explain that backwards logic for the rest of us, you know?" Weiss asked as she abandoned her perfect posture to slump against the seatrest.

"I spent some time with him at Forever Fall. We talked a bit and generally just goofed around while we waited for the sap. Bantering back and forth, messing with each other, and just talking about nothing in particular seemed to really fill Foxy with some life. A terrorist killed his friends and he chose to forgive him, he decided to save our asses at initiation and get us to work as a team instead of just getting the glory for himself, in class he is always the one to beat and he's always the one to lead. I think he just wants some normal in his life."

Ruby had been too engrossed in their conversation to notice it. At some point they must have began their descent. The landing gear had been deployed and the bullhead's forward momentum had been completely killed. The thud of the bullhead hitting the landing zone came as quickly as she had realized what was happening. Even louder than that was the sound of the rain; it was really coming down!

"Hmphgghgh! Are we there already?" Professor Port jolted awake. Ruby giggled as that simple action drained the tension from her team.

"We should endeavor to spend more time with Naruto then. I suppose we do owe him, myself doubly so for his indirect advice." Weiss proposed. Ruby nodded enthusiastically and Yang gave a thumbs up. Blake was obviously hesitant to agree, even still she too gave a singular nod.

"Well, well students, off you go now. Do make sure not to trip or any some such." Professor Port said as he led them out of the bullhead. They all unhooked their safety belts and made their way towards the exit ramp. Ruby didn't know what she expected when she exited the aircraft. It didn't seem important enough to put any thought into what to expect. Even if she had, she knew she would never have guessed what actually awaited them.

Naruto stood in the rain with only his fox to keep him company, which rested around his shoulders as had been the norm during their first week. In his hands he held a parasol, the pink and white canopy shielding the two of them from the downpour. Ruby should have been ecstatic to see his smiling face as she stepped off the bullhead… it was just that there was something about the way he smiled that felt very, very empty.

"Mr. Uzumaki! What are you doing in this deluge? You should head inside before you catch cold young man!" Professor Port's voice surprised voice resonated through the crashing rain.

"My apologies Professor. I had decided that somebody should wait to make sure team RWBY returned safely and elected myself for that position. I wouldn't want any of my team to be forced to endure this." Naruto gestured upwards towards the torrential rain.

"Good man! Let's all turn in together then!" Professor Port's rowdy and robust voice suggested as he began to lead them all in a march towards the entrance to Beacon.

"My apologies once more Professor. I thought I should show the professional courtesy to speak to team RWBY about what happened at the docks. It was essentially a joint mission between two members of our team after all." There was a tension in the air that Ruby couldn't describe if she was pressed to. Clearly Professor Port felt so as well; he exhibited a strange reluctance to leave, appearing to be rooted in place.

"Can we not all discuss this inside?" Professor Port asked somewhat pointedly. Naruto shook his head.

"We can not."

Professor Port's normal joviality was dashed and he looked concerned, yet in spite of that he decided to walk towards Beacon. When he was about shoulder to shoulder with Naruto he spoke in a voice just loud enough for Ruby to hear.

"Contrary to some others, I believe you are one worthy of trust. You have shown me such and have given me no reason to doubt you… I hope you know what you're doing young man." Professor Port said as he walked by Naruto, leaving the group of them in the rain. With that the only sound left was the slamming of the rain hitting the concrete. The air was thick with humidity, yet thicker still was the aura of malaise.

"You know you are using that wrong." Weiss bravely spoke, pointing at the parasol.

"You're not supposed to use these to block rain?" Naruto asked absently, not bothering to look at her as he spoke.

"Not at all! What you are thinking of is an umbrella. They are used to block rain and are what you'd want in a situation like this. That in your hand is a parasol. Unlike the umbrella, they-" Weiss suddenly stopped talking. Naruto had not interrupted her, nor had anyone seemed to do anything that would make her stop. Ruby understood completely why Weiss had. Somehow it felt like the temperature had dropped twenty degrees in that singular moment.

"I'm here to speak to Blake. Honestly you all have had quite the long day, you should really turn in for the night. She will return to you once I've finished with her." Naruto phrased it in a way of a suggestion, yet it didn't feel like a suggestion to Ruby, it didn't feel like a suggestion at all. Looking at Naruto chilled Ruby to the bone. Normally when he spoke this formally it was because he was messing around, like when he had pulled a prank on Weiss about Forever Fall. As socially awkward as Ruby might be, even she could tell that was not the case here.

Nothing about this was a joke.

When she had first met him she had thought he was so full of life and joy. He liked to tease people and play around with them. Then she saw him lead for the first time at initiation. His strong voice and no-nonsense attitude greatly contrasted the person she thought she knew. At the time it only made her admire him more. He was like some kind of super-huntsman-in-training! He could lead like a huntsman, fight like a huntsman, he could even teach like a huntsman! Ruby couldn't help it, she wanted to be like him.

Ever since then it was like a darkness had slowly crept over Naruto's soul. The lesson he had to teach had been useful, she couldn't deny that if she tried. Useful as it may have been, it was harsher than she had ever see him be before. In a short amount of time he just seemed to get chillier, colder, more distant…

The Naruto before her was so cold that he didn't even feel alive.

"What's going on?" Ruby asked cautiously. His fake smile abandoned him quickly and was replaced by a tight frown.

"Blake asked me to help her carry out a mission. Initially I was hesitant to agree to do so. There were several factors I didn't like about it and Blake could tell I was going to disagree." Naruto's normally blue eyes looked like black ice as they dug into Blake. "She proposed that because of my mission experience we should be safe. In the end I agreed to lead her and her friend as long as they followed my orders."

"Orders I didn't follow." Blake said, her voice both guilty and firm.

"Orders you didn't follow." Naruto agreed succinctly. "There were multiple members of the White Fang, a criminal whom my team has just informed me was the notorious Roman Torchwick, and someone even stronger than him as well. I made the decision that it was too risky to attempt to stop the robbery that was in progress and prioritized their safety. My order was to record them doing so as evidence to be provided to the authorities after I could guarantee my working team's safety."

"Now that should have been enough for Blake. Her original goal was to verify whether or not the White Fang were responsible for the recent spree of dust thefts and we had done just that. Instead, Blake opted to disobey my decision, jump down the building, sneak behind Roman Torchwick and attempt to hold him hostage while she unsuccessfully tried to talk down the White Fang. Doing so she got herself surrounded — only for us to find out they had two more bullheads filled with White Fang on standby. Their additional forces tipped the scales from five-to-one, a situation I had already deemed too risky, to something that was closer to eleven to one." Naruto stared at Blake with eyes so devoid of light they threatened to swallow anything that looked into them whole.

"So I then had to choose whether to abandon Blake to her death, or to risk the lives of not only myself, but a student from another school. Blake lied to me and then made me choose whether or not attempting to save her life from her own stupid mistake was worth risking two more lives."

For what felt like the first time since Naruto had started speaking Ruby managed to breathe. She had played video games where a boss monster had some sort of fear aura that made it so every member of your party had a chance to skip their turn. She had always thought it was a stupid mechanic for a game; her party would never let fear stop them! Standing where she was right now, standing both with and before a friend even, she immediately understood what her party had gone through. Her entire body felt like it was sculpted out of solid granite and no words could escape her mouth.

"They were bad guys and they were stealing something. That's the kind of thing we stop as huntresses." Yang stood up for her partner. Her voice didn't have any of the confidence, any of the strength, or anything that it would normally have really. Even then Ruby was impressed her sister managed to speak at all.

"Imagine this Yang: a grimm steals some old lady's purse and carries it off to a few hundred more grimm. Ruby says it is too risky to fight that many grimm just to get some lady's purse back, but Blake wants to pursue her justice and charges in anyways. Not wanting to let Blake fight a battle Ruby knows she can't win, Ruby charges in after her. Half an hour later you've got the purse, Blake, and instead of a sister you have a corpse. Are you still saying 'that's what huntresses do'?"

Yang didn't answer, she couldn't answer. Just like Ruby, Yang struggled to form any words or offer any defence.

"In that scenario Ruby decided your lives weren't worth risking for a purse. It wasn't like you all followed a purse snatcher and got ambushed by a few hundred criminals in that scenario and it wasn't like that with Blake either. She saw the risks, she knew the risks, she gambled our lives anyway."

"This wasn't just a purse!" Weiss attempted her usual indignation. As far as attempts go it was paltry at best.

"It wasn't a purse, instead it was a shipment of SDC dust. I'm not even sorry if this offends you Weiss; if it required me to take a substantial risk with your life, my team's life, or any life other than my own to get that dust back, I wouldn't do it. You're going to need to risk your lives regularly in this life. Do the people who care about you a favor and try to minimize that risk as much as possible."

Weiss staggered back like she was physically attacked. All of their faces were terrified, horrified, and above all else they were scared. The Naruto before them was an avatar of pure wrath. Every time Naruto got angry it was because somebody did something that might lead to them risking the lives of others in the field. At the time Ruby thought the way he acted was scary. Comparing the Naruto of then to the Naruto of now however, that was like comparing a single drop to the deluge they found themselves in.

"We all made it out fine!" Blake burst out. She was crying, she was ashamed, she was angry, and she was afraid. "We captured the White Fang, we saved the dust, and no one was hurt! If it was so risky then how are we all still here!?"

"BECAUSE OF ME!" Naruto bellowed with a voice loud enough to wake the dead, and angry enough to then scare them back. "I BEAT THE WHITE FANG, KURAMA ROUNDED THEM UP, I FOUGHT OFF TORCHWICK AND HIS ACCOMPLICE! AND HAVING FOUGHT THEM BOTH LET ME TELL YOU, THE TWO OF THEM COULD HAVE KILLED YOU AND SUN IN MINUTES!"

Naruto's head dropped as he stared at the ground. As the echoes of Naruto's fury dissipated the only sound was once again that of the torrential rain. Naruto had grown silent and nobody from RWBY dared to speak.

"I can't guarantee I'll always be there to bail you out Blake." Naruto spoke in a calm voice. It did nothing to abate Ruby's or anyone else's petrification. "You'll all go on missions of your own, you'll have choices to make on your own, and other things will happen that I won't be able to be there for. If you make choices like this on your own missions you will only invite disaster. There are things in this world worth risking your life on, even if the odds are bad. A few crates of SDC dust and misplaced White Fang pride just aren't."

"If you're so strong, then why didn't you do it yourself?" Blake asked, her voice accusatory and resentful. "You could have handled that on your own, you basically did! I know how little I did to help! I know I made things worse! Even after I screwed everything up you still got us all out without so much as a single scratch! If you're so strong then why didn't you stop them!?" She finished hysterically, tears flooding down her eyes. Tears born from frustration at Naruto's attack on her team as well as frustration with herself.

"It wasn't worth the risk." Naruto repeated stonily. Blake gave a watery chuckle.

"Even after I was caught in the middle of them you still got us all out unscathed, what risk!?"

"Firstly," Naruto started, his tone beginning to frost over once more, "There is always risk. Never forget that any mission, no matter how minor, contains risk. Secondly, not all risks are physical. Just because no one got hurt doesn't mean something terrible won't come of what happened."

"What? Did you take some type of emotional risk by going down there?"

"That's not all that far off the mark." Naruto admitted. Blake gave a rueful chuckle.

"I'm sorry if this ends up causing you some difficulty somehow, but that's part of being a huntsman. I'm sorry that I needed you. I'm not sorry for making you do something when you would have been content to do nothing."

Every last one of them was soaked except for Naruto. He stood there under is pink and white parasol with only small parts of his arm getting wet. Ruby was surprised the rain that did reach him didn't freeze on contact or divert itself from his path out of fear. Naruto breathed in deeply and then released a long sigh.

"I guess we have a difference of opinion then, huh?" Naruto said with a grin.

"Guess so." Blake responded simply. Naruto scratched his head still grinning. It was a grin with plenty of teeth, but it didn't have any soul.

"Well I have something for you then." Naruto said as he reached into his satchel. He withdrew one of his combat knives and spun it around his finger a few times before balancing the blade on an outstretched palm, presenting the handle towards all of them. "This was one of the kunai that I used to fight the two of them. I think given time this little guy will help give you some perspective on things."

"I really don't think it will, and that is really not necessary." Blake rejected him, but Naruto's smile stood firm.

"Please, I insist." He said as he reached his hand even closer to her. Deciding it was easier not to argue at this point Blake made her way towards Naruto. As her footsteps carried her closer and closer Naruto's smile never wavered. With each passing step the air felt like a guitar string being tightened one turn at a time.

Blake finally got close enough to take the knife, but hesitated. Naruto's grinning face felt like it was plastered on as he gestured for her to take it once more. With a reluctant sigh Blake reached out to grab the knife. As soon as her hand was on the handle everything happened at once.

Blake gasped, Yang shouted, and Weiss failed to stifle a shriek. Naruto's fox jumped off his shoulder and quintupled in size midair. By the time it landed it was as large as a beowolf with a growl far more terrifying as it warned them not to come closer.

Naruto had grabbed Blake's hand as it tightened around the kunai and stabbed himself. The kunai was in between his first and second rib as crimson blood began to flow onto it. Everyone was in shock, save one person.

"Now somebody has been hurt because of this mission." Naruto spoke plainly. "But hey, what do I know? Maybe this isn't quite enough to deter you. Maybe you'd still put an injury like this under an 'acceptable risk'. Let's make sure, alright." Naruto twisted her hand, and the knife with it. Steam erupted from his wound, a fact all of them were too shaken to process it.

"S-s-sto-top" Blake forced out through chattering teeth. Her whole body was shivering like she was going into shock.

"Are you sure?" Naruto asked, some sort of sick concern in his voice. "You see Blake, I can take a lot of punishment. I'm strong enough to do it, so I do. I'd rather go through some temporary pain to make sure the people around me survive. A while back I thought that I was strong enough that I could protect anyone, strong enough I would never lose anyone to violence again, but boy was I wrong. Sometimes the only way to protect someone is to teach them."

"And hey," Naruto shrugged, completely ignoring the knife lodged in his ribs, "sometimes I can do it by just talking to someone, most of the time even. However, sometimes it turns out that people just don't want to listen. You can trust me when I say that if I know listening to what I say will help save someone's life that I'd pay any price myself. Sometimes that price just has to be paid in blood." Naruto pulled the knife out of his body, a squelching sound filling the air as he did. As the knife was removed a few drops of blood dripped off the knife and onto the concrete. That was a moment when all of them learned something they never wished to know.

Sometimes a few drops are louder than a deluge.

* * *

 _ **"My only gripe,in fact, is the A/N at the end,in which you said that the story would be mixed with both sad and happy chapters for lack of better teem to put it. While you did acknowledge the chapters of recent are uplifting and dare I say fluffy, so far the only true "sad" chapter ive seen is chapter 1." -Commenter on chapter 11**_

 _ **My response? Release chapter sixteen, pick up keyboard, drop it.**_

 _ **If you happen to read this Alleria, I made sure to make it rain because they were sad. VISUAL SYMBOLISM!**_


	18. Sinus Rhythm

_**Hmmm... ermm... uhhh... *cough* G-greetings and salutations! Welcome to Chapter 17 of OFNT? I suppose I should probably explain myself, yeah? So I am still in a pretty tricky financial situation, but for the next twenty odd days or so I have been given a lease on life by some smiling god. Didn't really get gifts from some relatives growing up, instead they purchased me paper bonds. I just cashed those in and the money from that has been enough to keep my lights on and food on the table until at least most of the way through next month. That segues pretty nicely into point two...**_

 ** _My Pa+reon has gotten its first donor, Skrubstar (thank you so incredibly much!). I was pretty much ready to call it quits until this guy gave me five dollars and said he'd hate to see the end of my content. Obviously that isn't enough to do anything with, but it means something to me. That guy had five dollars to spend and he thought this stupid fic was worth spending it on? I don't know it makes sense to you guys, but that just really motivates me to keep trying. So until I can't afford to I'm going to keep on writing this fic, and I'm going to keep asking anyone who is willing to spare a singular dollar to throw me a bone. Until I can't afford to do otherwise, I intend to keep trying. If you do a search for Kamorge0 on Pa+reon you will find me there, a singular dollar means more to me than I can say._**

 _ **Money aside, I received a huge surge of support (and just a littttttle more hate than usual too) after releasing my last chapter. I easily doubled my average reviews per chapter on that one with requests to keep going, well wishes for my health and fiscal situation, and other support. I don't believe I owe you guys anything, I just genuinely want to continue for the fans that have supported me thus far as a sign of gratitude.**_

 _ **With that out of the way I just need to touch on the fact that this is part one of another two part chapter series. The first half of this chapter happens the day after the events of** Paid in Blood **right after their last class. The second part happens a few hours after that. In the next chapter there will also only be two parts which will occur at those times as well. I haven't done much doubling back in this story, so I wanted to preface that. With that being said I present to you Chapter 17 of An Old Fox's New Trick. See you guys next time.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 17**

 **Sinus Rhythm**

"You know…" Naruto started from his usual position on the bleachers before immediately trailing off. CRDL had just started their fifteen minute break after a straight hour of two on two sparring. All of them felt like they were running on nothing but fumes despite still having aura to spare. As such they had collapsed in various degrees of disarray. Russel was sweating so much that whatever product he used to fluff up his mohawk had completely washed out half an hour ago, resulting in his hair laying tragically limp across the left side of his head.

Because with Naruto it was never as simple as just an hour of sparring. Before that they had done five miles of sand-weighted jogging. The weight they had been _blessed_ with by the demon raccoon varied per person with Cardin shouldering sixty pounds of additional weight while Russel only had to do thirty. If Cardin thought about it realistically it made perfect sense that he had to carry more weight due to his more robust physique. However, rational thought had performed a suicidal jump out of the window far earlier into their hellish training.

"I have been training you guys long enough to realize something pretty important." Naruto said with a sagely nod.

"Yeah… and what's… that…" Russe wheezed out, lifting his head off the ground to look at their demon trainer. He had been laying face first in the grass for the past few minutes.

"You guys suck." Naruto professed in a way that implied he had imparted some profound wisdom to them. Cardin and Russel swore up a storm as they threw out every curse in the book at Naruto, despite Dove chuckling Cardin could tell he was pissed too, while Sky just seemed to take it to heart with a grimace of disappointment.

"To be fair to you idiots it would be more proper to say your team sucks," Naruto amended, "individually you've actually really started coming along."

The blonde demon was right about them getting better, of course. Day in and day out he ran them into the ground just as a prelude to the tortures they would then have the privilege to experience. Having been at Beacon for just around a month they could say that the past two weeks of training had pushed them to a whole new level.

The most noticeable thing was the muscle they were gaining. You shouldn't have been able to gain muscle this fast, but they were. Cardin's and Dove's physique had started to become more lean and sculpted while Russel and Sky had started to fill out. Naruto had given them diet menus that had them shoveling more food down their throats than any of them had thought possible, only for them to train so hard they wanted to throw it back up.

The less overt thing was just the way CRDL had changed as a team. Before they would hang out, play games, goof around in class, and during their breaks they'd screw with people. Remembering it didn't fill Cardin with any sense of pride, but he had learned the importance of staring who he was in the face.

Their days now were completely booked. On the days Naruto would train them they would go to class, train with Naruto, do their homework and then sleep. Any remaining time they had during the day involved talking about training, gorging themselves, and any remaining time was spent on weapon maintenance or other necessary upkeep.

The days when Naruto wasn't there to train them were different from week one to week two. The first week they would spend their off-days trying to recuperate from their previous training session with him. He had given them a verbal training menu to follow that was just as insane as the days he worked with them, but other than Sky no one had it in them to even try. Near the end of the first week Naruto had been watching them and commented that they weren't improving as fast as they should have been.

When he asked if they had been following their menus all he got was a lot of nervous shame from a majority of CRDL. Sky had been the exception, as he actually looked more angry with himself than anything else. Naruto's response had been to shrug it off. It was a response that the entire team knew he hadn't meant, a fact that only made the rest of that session more awkward. When they reached the end of that day Naruto gave them a small speech.

 _I gave you those menus because you can handle them. I'm not telling you it will be easy, I'm not telling you it won't hurt, and I'm definitely not telling you that you're going to like it, but they were made to be doable. You all can choose for yourselves whether or not you you want to be good huntsmen or great huntsmen. No skin off my back whichever you choose, really. Being great at something involves both working at it when you don't want to and working harder even when you don't think you have it in you. Each and every one of you is going to have to decide if that is something you are willing to do._

 _You guys have an advantage on normal people because you have aura. If you start to break your body your aura will step in to fix it, so take advantage of that! Train until your muscles scream, train until your bones creak, train until you pass out, and then you should wake up and train some more. You don't know when that extra bit of training will mean the difference between saving a life and failing._

With those words etched into the bedrock of their souls the second week had been completely different. Putting their nose to the grindstone was no longer good enough, so they shoved their whole faces in. Parts of all of them had accepted that they couldn't do more than they already were last week and none of them liked that, to be blunt they all hated themselves for it. So if this training was to be their soul's furnace than they would make it burn as hot as possible so they could extract that weakness from their being and reforge themselves stronger than ever before.

CRDL was not a team of students anymore, none of them would accept that mentality in themselves or each other. From that point on they were huntsmen in training. As ridiculous as it was, that was a mental distinction that made all the difference.

"So if all of us are steadily improving, where do you believe our deficiencies lie?" Dove asked with hunger in his eyes. It was a hunger that was reflected in the eyes of each and every CRDL member.

The need to improve.

"In this case I'm talking about your team specifically. To be exact," Naruto pointed at both Cardin and Dove, "I'm talking about you two." Russel cackled in joyous condescension.

"I'm just gonna join Sky in the winner's circle." He mocked the two of them despite still lying face first on the ground. Cardin grabbed him by his sweaty mohawk and _playfully_ slammed his face into the ground. Then, just for shits and giggles, he did it again. "Fugh oo!" Russel swore through a facefull of dirt.

"Oh don't worry Russel, you suck too. I just know a lost cause when I see one." Naruto ruthlessly teased. Cardin burst out with bawdy laughter, Dove's usually more refined laugh matched Cardin's in volume, and even Sky couldn't help but chuckle a bit maliciously. Russel glowered furiously at Naruto, but the dirt in his face and Cardin's grip on his hair certainly didn't help get the intended fear factor across.

"All right, joke time is over. Focus up!" Naruto commanded. CRDL fell into line like veteraned huntsmen as they all scrambled to sit up straight. Naruto never cared if they stood at attention or anything formal like that. Things with him were always pretty simple when you got down to it; if he said to pay attention it was because he was about to say something worth paying attention to.

"I wasn't completely messing around when I said Cardin and Dove were the problem, but that isn't because I'm selling you two short. I actually think the two of you have the most untapped potential for your team in a way that it desperately needs." Naruto clarified. "Let's start this off with scenario training: How would you guys take down a deathstalker?"

"Deathstalkers are tough. We shouldn't be dealing with that shit until second year." Russel reminded Naruto. Sky finally spoke up for the first time today, yet instead of addressing Naruto he spoke to Russel.

"RWBY barely managed to do it during initiation, but they still managed. We can't think like we have all the time in the world to get better." Sky then turned to Naruto. "I don't think Dove or myself have the weaponry to deal with the armored plating a deathstalker. Our best bet would be to either have Cardin try and land multiple strong attacks on a single armored plate to try to break through it, or to have Russel stab his daggers through the armor and inject dust attacks directly to its body."

Naruto whistled and gave Sky a sitting ovation.

"A great plan." He praised, causing CRD to grumble in annoyance. Sky tended to ace these scenarios every time and Cardin was a little irked about it. "Honestly it is something that I'd recommend to almost any of the teams here in Beacon. Problem is that you guys would never be able to pull it off."

"You're saying the plan is good, but our team isn't good enough for the plan?" Cardin asked. Naruto nodded freely.

"Pretty much exactly that. As you are right now you wouldn't be able to do it. Luckily for you guys I recently had an opportunity to remind myself that people don't always listen to me when I speak." CRDL shivered as a whole. They did not know what he was talking about, but they had trained with him enough to not like where this was going. "Shu!"

Naruto had turned an area near the track into what was essentially a sand pit. Rather than turn new earth into sand every single time he just kept a small area of it to be used every time they trained. Whenever the demon racoon wasn't torturing the members of CRDL you could find it merrily playing in that sandpit, building small castles like a toddler. As it plodded over to the grassy center of the track where CRDL was sitting it did something they had never seen and would never want to see again.

Sand swirled around the thing as it grew larger and larger with each passing step. By the time it reached them what had previously been a raccoon was now a towering deathstalker replica composed almost entirely of sand. The only thing holding back their complete immersion was the fact that instead of a deathstalker's beady eyes there was a stupid raccoon face.

"Well, go fight your deathstalker kids." Naruto said in an old man voice as he gestured for them to shoo off. CRDL collectively groaned at the idea of fighting a deathstalker after three solid hours of training. No matter how loudly they complained all of them still rose to their feet and drew their weapons. Naruto said they weren't good enough and they all believed that as well.

So all that was left was to get better.

"Aura check!" Cardin sounded off. Every member of CRDL quickly checked their scrolls score immediately stowing them again.

"Fifty-five percent." Dove replied.

"Forty-two percent." Sky followed up.

"Ahhh shit, thirty-one percent." Russel swore.

"I'm running green at sixty." Cardin informed his team, breaking out into a grin. "Sucks ass that we have to do this after all our training."

"That I can not disagree with." Dove affirmed with a small smile plying the corners of his mouth upwards.

"Yeah, but hey, sometimes life just sucks ass, right?" Russel laughed with a shit-eating grin.

"Let's make the most of it anyways." Sky said, eyes aflare with determination. Settling into their stances the members of CRDL prepared to fight with all they had left. They would not allow themselves to stay the same way forever.

* * *

That being said, six attempts later they hadn't made a single dent on the pseudo-deathstalker. Every single one of their aura's were well into the danger zone when Naruto finally called for them to stop. The lot of them were laid out on the ground like a piece of modern as they gasped and struggled through gasped breaths to take in enough air. Just like that the stupid raccoon shrunk and rolled its way back to the sandpit, the previously used sand floated harmlessly behind him before ultimately being returned to the pit itself.

"So, what did you guys learn about your team?"

Well that was the question, wasn't it? They had tried both of Sky's ideas multiple times, but none of them connected. Neither Cardin or Dove were ever able to connect their strikes the way they intended to. It was too easy for the 'deathstalker' to blow their guards away and deal with whichever of them was trying to strike.

"I don't know what it was man, but it felt like we just couldn't keep it still for shit. When Cardin was on the attack it was even worse!" Russel complained, his breath returned to him. Cardin couldn't fault him for it because he had noticed the exact same thing. Whenever RDL had to try and keep the 'deathstalker' busy the thing bucked around even worse than it had been when he was helping to keep it busy.

"You're on to something there Russel." Naruto smiled. "Someone other than Sky finish it off."

"I'm the problem." Cardin admitted, deflating his barely filled lungs in defeat with a massive exhale. "I'm the only one strong enough to try and hold something like that back, but I can't do it."

"Ding ding ding!" Naruto chimed. "Like it or not guys, Cardin is the one who anchors your team down. Not just because he is your leader, but because he is your rock. He has the most aura, the most physical strength, and the largest body out of any of you. Your team is failing because of a lack of purpose." Naruto lifted his hand to point a finger at Russel.

"You are the weakest and fastest of your group. The problem is that you aren't even all that fast. I know every member of RWBY is naturally faster than you. Even Yang, the only one you might be faster than, would easily surpasses you when she uses using her weapons to shoot herself forward. Not everyone can be as strong as Cardin, but if you can't match people in power you're gonna have to get a hell of a lot quicker."

"Dove," Naruto gestured at the swordsman, "You're the most skilled member of your team by a mile. Your swordplay is superb and you handle your weapon better than most people at Beacon. That being said, I've got to ask; is there something wrong with your left hand?"

"No?" Dove responded, his voice tinged with uncertainty

"Then use it for something for Kami's sake! I don't care if you get a bigger weapon and grip it with two hands, grab another weapon and wield two at once, or grapple and punch things with your spare hand, just do something! Figure out what you want to do with your left hand by our next session and let me know, I'll get you trained in whatever you choose." Naruto turned his focus to Sky

"Sky, I'm sorry to say that I don't have a lot of expertise with the kind of weapon you use. Unlike everyone else I can only tell you what's wrong and not how to fix it." Sky nodded in grim understanding. "The way you fit into your formation is like a relief fighter. If anyone on your team is overwhelmed, you go and lend them a hand. That isn't a bad thing by itself honestly. The problem is that you bring nothing to your team that any other member doesn't already do better than you."

"You aren't fast, your strikes don't have power, and you're worse than both Cardin and Dove at taking and blocking hits." Naruto finished mercilessly. When Cardin looked to Sky he was proud to see that his teammate didn't balk, didn't complain, and didn't have any quit in his eyes.

"I know all of that! Please tell me what I can do to help my team!" Sky said as he bowed his head.

"I want you to be your team's heavy hitter." Cardin blinked in surprise. It was kind of hard not to, he thought that was his job after all. "Your weapon is long enough to create a lot of force through momentum. As you are now your body wouldn't be able to handle the role, so you'll be getting supplemental strength training added to your menu individually."

Cardin couldn't help but wince in empathy for his teammate. They had been taking this as seriously as possible this week. As a result, they slept so soundly they had started setting five separate alarms just to make sure they woke up. Sky didn't back down in spite of that. Ever since Forever Fall Sky had never backed down from anything.

"In addition to that I'm going to have to find someone to help you work on defensive techniques with your axe-spear thing."

"Halberd," Sky supplied him with the word.

"Right, that. You're taking too many hits in sparring and it is pretty obvious why. The only way you know how to defend is by bracing yourself and blocking hits with the shaft of your weapon. I'll spare you the details right now, just know that you're going to be learning how to deflect hits for your team." Sky nodded. Saving him for last Naruto finally turned to Cardin, reaching behind his back.

"Cardin, catch." Naruto threw something through the air like a spinning disc. Cardin caught it without any difficulty and gave it a onceover.

"A shield?" Cardin asked with no small amount of distaste.

"A shield." Naruto nodded. "I grabbed it from a spare equipment closet. Once you get used to it we can get you one custom made. If Sky is going to become your team's strength, you're going to be its endurance."

"I'm really not the type to use a shield." The dingy white kite shield was dust and old. Even though he hated to admit it, the shield did feel sturdy in Cardin's hand.

"I'll find a way to make you the type."

"I like to use my weapon with both hands."

"Sucks to be you."

"You don't get it, okay!" Cardin groused angrily at Naruto. "Gramps used a shield and tried to teach me to use one as well. I suck with these things! I'm better suited to dealing damage."

"You're right." Naruto agreed succinctly. Cardin eyed him quizzically.

"Then why do I have t-"

"I can teach Sky to hit hard," Naruto cut Cardin off, "I can teach Russel to be fast, and I can teach Dove that he has a left hand. What I can't do is teach either of those two to be as big as you or have your aura. A team isn't about doing what you want to do, it is about doing what you need to do. Your team needs a guardian, a protector. That protector is you, Cardin."

"Why can that role not be mine?" Dove asked. Naruto grumbled at pointed to Dove's left arm.

"Your non-dominant arm is too weak to withstand the force it would need to on the front lines. I could get you strong enough in a month or so, but your team can't wait that long. You guys need to start training in a formation that is going to help you fight grimm as soon as possible for the upcoming missions."

Cardin hated to admit it, but he knew Naruto was right. His team had all had horsed around together after moving into their dorm and had started arm wrestling to prove who was strongest. Dove beat everyone but Cardin with his right, but he lost to every one of them with this left. Dove wouldn't be able to take a deathstalker's claw head on.

He could.

"If you think this is the best way to keep my team and the people I need to protect alive… I'll do it."

"Hell yeah!" Russel cheered. Dove and Sky both grinned and gave him a thumbs up. Cardin turned back to Naruto again, finally rising from his seat on the grass.

"I wasn't joking when I say I suck with these things. I hope you are a hell of a teacher."

"Nah, I suck with those things. I prefer striking anyways." A vein in Cardin's temple bulged as he resisted the urge to murder the blonde. "I do have someone else in mind for the job, so don't worry about that. I'll get in touch with you guys when I have everything set up."

With that they knew they were dismissed. Naruto got up to leave without so much as another word and started to make his way back to Beacon. Normally they'd just let him go, but this time Cardin called out to him.

"Naruto!" Cardin shouted. Naruto turned back around with a confused expression. "We were all thinking of dropping by RWBY's dorm today to make sure they are okay. So you want to meet us there with your team an hour from now?"

"Can't. I have my own training to do and a paper for Oobleck's class to finish." Naruto chuckled as he shook his head. "Also I'm pretty sure I know why they all skipped class, so I don't really need to check."

"Was their teammate harmed at that harbor incident last night?" Sky asked with concern.

"Honestly I just had a fight with Blake about the decisions she made. Things got pretty heated." Naruto chuckled again as they all looked at him suspiciously. "Seriously, no bad blood between the two of us. She made a dumb mistake in the field and I had to tell her off for it. I'm pretty sure she gets it now, so the two of us are cool."

Cardin didn't really understand why some argument would make their entire team skip a whole day's worth of classes, the Schnee in particular. Naruto sounded the same as he always did, so Cardin ultimately had little cause to doubt him.

"We will just head over there now since we don't have to wait up for you and your team. Keep us posted about the training!" Cardin reminded him as Naruto waved goodbye as he walked away. Stretching his arms Cardin got off the ground. "You guys ready to get going?"

After all of them stood up with varied degrees of reluctance they all made their way to RWBY's dorm in good cheer. Cardin was even a little nervous to enter a girl's room for the first time.

* * *

Staff meetings were a pretty run of the mill things for an organization such as a school. Emergency staff meetings were much more of a rarity, you'd see only one to two of those a year normally. Emergency staff meetings called by Professor Port were unheard of. Less than ten hours ago the number of that last type had sat firmly at a lifetime record of zero. In the present, however, it had now risen to one.

"Peter, is everything alright?" Glynda asked a seated Professor Port. Oobleck and Port sat on a couch across from Glynda who sat on the other. A large coffee table separated the two sides as clearly as their motives. Well, at least Peter's motives.

"Unfortunately I'm finding it difficult to believe much is right now." Port leveled Ozpin with a meaningful look.

"You know how much I value your opinion Peter. If there is something amiss I woul-"

"We all know WHO exactly I am talking about Ozpin. The difference is that on a bullhead flight home yesterday I received some insight into how you were handling said student." Peter harrumphed agitatedly before continuing. "Apparently you have driven Mr. Uzumaki to skulk around in the shadows like some sort of rat. It has gotten to the point where even other teams know how fervently he is being forced to avoid you."

"Ahh…" Ozpin intoned without much surprise. "I believe I can safely assume you disagree with my approach?"

"You're bloody well right." Port affirmed forcefully. "That lad might just be the best huntsman we have had cross our threshold since Beacon opened in the first place. Making him feel like a hunted animal in this school is the last thing we should be doing."

"Mr. Uzumaki had not been the most forthcoming about his abilities. When you combine that with his predilection for disappearing-"

"That boy knows how to avoid cameras better than an escaped convict." Port chortled.

"-it doesn't lend itself particularly well to trusting him." Goodwitch finished.

"Are we truly suspecting Mr. Uzumaki of foul play?" Oobleck entered the conversation. "Do you believe him to be some sort of insurgent? His capture of the thirty White Fang last night to be some sort of elaborate smokescreen meant to throw us off his trail?"

"Nobody is accusing Mr. Uzumaki of anything." Ozpin assured Oobleck. The history professor may have looked calm on the outside, but Ozpin knew better than to believe that. "He is a valued student here at Beacon Academy and our goal has never been to make him feel unwelcome."

"You've done a rubbish job of that. I don't want to hear from another team about how 'stressed out' you are making him. Once again I say that boy could be the most-"

"That boy is already the most powerful huntsman-in-training we've had enter." Ozpin interjected. "He is stronger than either of the Branwen twins when they entered this school. If he were to leave this instant he would still be one of the most powerful huntsmen in the field. I am being cautious where he is concerned because I do not understand why Mr. Uzumaki is here. His goal is clearly not to become a huntsman, he essentially is one already."

A silence fell over the group, ending their previously loud debate. It continued on for minutes as all of the professors attempted to straighten out their thoughts. Delving into the mystery of Naruto Uzumaki was as difficult for each of them as it had been for Ozpin himself.

"I have a working theory that might explain some of Mr. Uzumaki's behavior, though I want to be clear I can't be certain of its validity." Oobleck broke the silence.

"A working theory is better than anything we have now." Ozpin heaved an exasperated sigh. Ooblek nodded and continued.

"I believe Mr. Uzumaki may have come here with the intent to teach the students as opposed to learning from us. Although his grades are relatively high compared to the average student he doesn't appear to take any pride in them. By comparison, I have seen him spend multiple hours training Team Cardinal near the track and field area. The way in which he invests his time implies a higher focus on practical skills above anything else. One might think that would make Professor Goodwitch's class his favorite… however-"

"However, he had made a mockery of every fight he has been in by one method or another. I can assure you that not only is my class not Mr. Uzumaki's favorite, it is obviously his least favorite." Goodwitch interjected with an exasperated sigh. Ooblek nodded at her, holding up his pointer finger.

"But you see, that is inconsistent with his actions." Ooblek pointed as Goodwitch with his extended finger. "Your class is the most straightforwardly practical of all the classes he is taking. He is a stern leader, you are-" Ooblek paused, carefully considering his words before he continued, "an exceptional leader that should have his respect. The fact that he shows such aversion towards you leads me to believe there is something else about your class he doesn't like."

"And that something is not exactly a mystery." Ozpin's deep exhale taking on the properties of a groan. "Why have you been so incessant to try and drag his abilities to the surface Glynda?" If the woman in question was at all abashed about being called out she hid it immaculately.

"Firstly, I try to draw out the abilities of all of my students in one way or another. Just because you and Mr. Uzumaki reached some type of accord does not mean I am going to stop." She leveled Ozpin with a stare that challenged him to disagree. "Secondly, he turned a fight against Ms. Nikos into a farce even after I had forbid him from using his semblance. When he did finally decide to take that match seriously it was over almost immediately, the result being his overwhelming victory. At this point I'm not even sure what I am supposed to teach him."

"He has displayed talent in leadership and tactics," Ozpin held up two fingers, "He is skilled in hand to hand combat, his aura pool is unbelievably vast, and his semblance is both unprecedented and inarguably the strongest of his year, and arguably the entire school." The rest of the fingers on his hand unfurled. "I'm beginning to wonder if we ought to be seeking to learn from Mr. Uzumaki rather than teach him."

"Sure the lad is strong, but don't you think you are going a bit far?" Port chortled at the idea of being taught by a student. Ozpin grabbed his computer monitor and turned it to face the three of them.

"By now you've all heard of his control of polarity. It is similar to Ms. Nikos' own semblance in a way, just without the necessity for the object he manipulates to be magnetic." Ozpin explained as he typed away on his keyboard. "In that regard it would be more accurate to compare it to Glynda's own semblance."

"The difference being that he seems to only push or pull things in respect to his body's location. I'm not sure if it is a limit of his semblance, or just a lack of training, but his semblance appears to control the polarity of any object, limiting the motion of objects he controls to either be pushed away or pulled towards him. The restriction that he is always the source of his semblance makes it different from Ms. Nikos' ability to charge objects with magnetism, also distinguishing it from a telekinetic semblance such as my own." Glynda helped clear up the differences between the three.

"That is not all. We know that Mr. Uzumaki has a semblance that gives him the appearance of having multiple." Ozpin gestured to an image of Naruto on his screen. It was a picture of him floating on a disc of sand that had been taken at the initiation course. "While incredibly rare, it is not something we have not seen in students before. Using those students as a baseline, I made the assumption that his polarity semblance would be his primary means of combat." Ozpin looked at his monitor and opened a video file to show them. "Apparently I was wrong to assume that."

The video showed a deathstalker fighting against the students of CRDL in the track and field area while Naruto watched passively from the sidelines. At least that was what they all thought they saw initially, a closer inspection revealed the 'deathstalker' was made entirely of sand.

"Ozpin, surely you jest!" Port laughed boisterously, the smallest tinge of nervousness splashed into his confident demeanor.

"I do not," Ozpin said as he fiddled with his keyboard once more, "no matter how much easier that would be to accept." The video showed Naruto's sand raccoon walking forward towards CRDL as sand formed around its body to give it the appearance of a deathstalker. "It appears that Mr. Uzumaki has just as proficient a grasp on the other aspects of his semblance and is not unused to using them for combat."

"That is unbelievable." Ooblek spoke in shock. "Of the handful of multi-semblance huntsmen in the world I haven't heard of a single one who possessed two combat semblances."

"That's because there hasn't been one reported." Glynda supplemented, her words somewhat rasped as her breath seemed to have left her.

"Incredible…" Even Port was shocked.

"He has a third facet to his semblance as well." Ozpin added as he sipped at the coffee long idle on his desk.

"That's impossible."

"There has never been a case of three semblances."

"What the bloody hell?" Glynda, Ooblek, and Port all spoke simultaneously.

"When I conducted the interview for Mr. Uzumaki's application to Beacon he revealed three guardian spirits to lead he explained his semblance. The first was the fox that you all are familiar with," the three professors nodded. The fox was commonly present wherever Naruto was himself, but the two had been separated more and more recently, "the fox appears to be responsible for his polarity, the 'tanuki' as he chose to identify it corresponds to his control of sand."

"I have never seen his third spirit." Glynda looked towards Port and Ooblek, the two of them nodding to signal the same.

"Other than that initial meeting I have not seen the creature either, nor do I know what it allows Mr. Uzumaki to do. I have not yet seen anything that suggests he has used a power outside of first two spirits."

"You don't have any ideas?" Port inquired disbelievingly.

"I have plenty of ideas, but no means by which to ensure that they are accurate."

"Could you postulate nonetheless?" Ooblek requested.

"The spirit itself is a hybrid between an octopus and an ox. Based on that I could assume that it gives him some control over water much like the sandy tanuki gives him control over earth. Mr. Uzumaki frequently converts dirt or stone into sand whenever he uses the tanuki." Ozpin explained as he pulled up another video from initiation of the small sand racoon turning the ground into sand and carrying it over to Naruto's launchpad. "It is a difficult theory to commit to as his fox's power has nothing to do with the elements at all. The idea is truly conjecture at best."

"The creature itself was also very muscular, so I could just as easily hypothesize that it provides him with strength." Ozpin continued. "This at least we have some evidence towards. In his spar with Ms. Nikos he managed to deplete her aura with two strikes delivered squarely to her shield. Though by no means abnormally high, Ms. Nikos is not insufficient in aura herself. I'm not sure how a strike powerful enough to knock her aura so low in two hits didn't penetrate through it entirely and break her arm. That speaks to a strength that shouldn't be achievable with pure physicality."

"Truly? Two hits? I had heard students murmur about it, but dismissed it as the usual babbled rumors..." Port muttered, clearly impressed.

"You truly believe that this ox-octopus contains a third semblance?" Ooblek questioned seriously, Ozpin nodded

"I do. Mr. Uzumaki was not quite so untrusting of me when he arrived at this school and was more forthcoming in the interview than he has been since." Peter frowned at that. "If he thought it pertinent to mention the fact that there are three spirits, I presume there to be three abilities. What I'm not able to understand is why he is both secretive of his abilities, yet blasé about his aptitude."

"Taking Ms. Nikos lightly was a clear example of the latter, whereas the fact that he has not used the other parts of his semblance in combat displays the former." Goodwitch walked herself through Ozpin's thought process aloud, nodding in agreement with her words and the sense they made.

"I believe the two of you are being too hasty to judge the lad as secretive." Port injected his opinion to the conversation with forceful aplomb, his eyes conveying a sort of kinship of the soul.

"I can assure you that Mr. Uzumaki is withholding his true strength." Ozpin stated firmly, his eyes narrowing. Port waved him off magnanimously.

"I'm not saying that he isn't, I just believe there to be another explanation. What if the young man is simply bored?"

"What kind of boredom do you think would explain his behavior?" Ooblek inquired with a sort of scholarly curiosity.

"The first time I killed a beowolf was thrilling! The blood pumping through my veins, the fear of impending death running rampant through my mind, the taste of victory positively palpable on the very air itself. Nowadays killing a beowolf feels less like a hunt and more like an extermination. Still, I know it is a task that must be done, so instead of fighting as best as I am able I will make a sport out of it. Fight them with no weapon, fight an entire pack without allowing myself to move my feet, fun challenges to add the spice of life to the mundanity."

If a student were there when Port said that each and every one of them would have condemned him on the spot. Constant vigilance and safety was a lesson each and every one of them preached to their students on a daily basis. That didn't change the fact that thinning out the grimm in the forest was a tedious task that provided them no joy or thrill to speak of.

"So you believe that he does not show his power because it wouldn't be interesting?" Goodwitch asked a bit disbelievingly. As she began to tap the frame of her spectacles it looked like she considered the notion more seriously. "He was able to finish the with Ms. Nikos incredibly quick."

"And if the young man can defeat Ms. Nikos within seconds of taking her seriously why would he bother fighting his hardest at all? Every time you add a restriction to him in combat he makes sure to emerge victorious in spite of them. If he really wanted to hide his abilities from us then he could just forfeit, throw the fight, or make it appear as if he barely emerged victorious. I just don't think anything has pushed him to the point where he needed to try."

"There is something else I would like to mention." Oobleck spoke up, stirring himself from his pensive thoughts. "One cannot learn much from an overwhelming defeat. I believe he could be restraining himself in order to teach the students. I have seen video recordings of the match between Ms. Nikos and Mr. Uzumaki; despite any claims that he was not taking it seriously from the start he still managed to outmaneuver his opponent from a tactically inferior position. The way he fought seemed to inspire his teammate to fight harder and more seriously than she normally would have.

"You think his primary reason for acting like a buffoon was to help his teammate?" Glynda arched a singular eyebrow with no small amount of incredulity.

"I believe that it may have been a motivator for him, that is all. I also believe the combination of that and Peter's reasonings would be enough to explain his actions without needing to believe that Mr. Uzumaki is here for nefarious purposes."

"Though I may have doubted Mr. Uzumaki's intentions at first, that is now a matter of the past." Ozpin admitted simply. "I do not believe an agent of destruction would draw attention to themselves to the extent that he has chosen to. My worries have since shifted towards his growing distance from everyone at Beacon. When he entered the school he had an almost childlike enjoyment of pranks and teasing others. Over time Mr. Uzumaki has grown increasingly stern and cold

"Oz has a point. The boy scared half my class to death when he taught that lesson in my class." Port reluctantly agreed. Bart's eyebrow rose in surprise.

"I was unaware Mr. Uzumaki had taught a lesson. What did he teach?" Oobleck asked, his face sinking into a pensive look.

"Got in front of the lot of them and ran them through scenario training. The whole class took turns making decisions on a single situation, each successive person solving the problems the person before them had left."

"A simple and effective approach. Was there anything striking about the way in which he taught?" Oobleck asked Port.

"According to Peter's report Mr. Uzumaki was incredibly strict." Ozpin chose to answer instead. "However, he was not strict in the way one might expect a student to be. Whenever a student made a mistake he would inform them of what they did wrong, then tell them the solution. The difference between his treatment of the students largely depended on how seriously they took it."

"Quite so! The young man was perfectly calm towards Mr. Winchester when he gave an answer that was only half right. Mr. Uzumaki then informed Mr. Winchester that he should have asked his team for input before making a decision. When Mr. Winchester protested it prompted a rather irate response from Mr. Uzumaki." Port added.

"The student that provoked the worst reaction from him was none other than his own teammate." Ozpin sifted through some papers as he looked for something. "Ahh yes, Ms. Valkyrie decided to call down a bullhead in an airspace that was known to have Nevermore. Mr. Uzumaki made sure to firmly impress upon her that a decision like that could lead to the death of her team and civilians in the field. He also criticized his teammate for her reliance on her partner to make decisions."

"An excellently taught lesson." Oobleck nodded with contentment in regards to Naruto's lesson. Peter gave a few sharp bursts of laughter.

"Criticize? I don't believe that to be the verbatim I used in my report. The lad guilted his teammate into shock by suggesting she had killed her partner. The boy looked ready to vault over the desks and throttle Ms. Valkyrie himself."

"I find that hard to believe." Goodwitch's face riddled with obvious surprise. "I don't doubt that you're telling the truth, Peter… it's just that it's hard to imagine Mr. Uzumaki being that passionate about anything."

"I find it hard to imagine him not being passionate." Port scrunched up his face in confusion, mustache bristles teasing the underside of his nose. "The lad had a talk with Ms. Schnee inside a week of being enrolled here about her not trying to be part of her team. She was having none of it, so the crazy bastard said he'd quit Beacon if she didn't like what he had to say. One conversation later, Ms. Schnee resolved to be a part of her team and has been improving ever since."

"He was prepared to leave the school on her request?" Oobleck didn't bother looking up as he spoke, staring at the floor as if searching it for answers.

"Indubitably."

There was another break in the conversation as silence enveloped the headmaster's office. Many facts, theories and opinions had been thrown around about the mysterious blonde student. The views of him varied so greatly in the case of Port and Goodwitch that it was difficult to ascertain who he was at his core.

"It appears Professor Oobleck may have been right with his theory, though maybe not entirely." Ozpin broke what would be their final silence. "Mr. Uzumaki was the happiest he would be in Beacon the day he walked through our doors. Since that time he has taught many students a great deal, yet he appears substantially more miserable. Having listened to you all, I believe that Mr. Uzumaki feels the need to teach, but he does not necessarily want to."

"You believe he does not enjoy teaching?" Oobleck spoke quietly, his voice so soft a passing breeze could have blown it away.

"I do not think it is that simple either. He has spent more time with Cardinal than most any others, time that has been entirely spent on training. The entirety of CRDL seem to have great respect and admiration for Mr. Uzumaki and treat his training sessions with the utmost seriousness. I believe it is their much more serious nature as a team that now enables Mr. Uzumaki to teach them without undue stress and frustration."

"He does not enjoy teaching people who won't take his lessons seriously, then?" Goodwitch suggested. Once again Ozpin disagreed.

"I doubt Mr. Uzumaki has any concept of enjoying or failing to enjoy teaching."

"You think the lad doesn't care either way?" Port inquired. Three for three, Ozpin once again disagreed.

"I believe that he teaches because he believes he must. I suspect that he views the consequences of not teaching to be something he cannot accept. Since he believes that he must teach he ignores any negative effects it has on him. If I'm right, it is possible he does not even realize what teaching is doing to him."

"I believe," Oobleck began to speak as soon as Ozpin finished, "that Mr. Uzumaki teaches much like one might expect a doctor to bring back a heart back to sinus rhythm."

Oobleck didn't wait for anyone to respond, he just pressed on.

"The first step he does is to identify that one must be taught, like one identifies that a heart rate is crashing. From there he looks to shock the heart back into rhythm, but he needs to find a defibrillator in order to do that. Mr. Uzumaki searches for something to shock the heart with. In the case of Mr. Winchester he used the trauma of the ursa attack as the shock, whereas with Ms. Valkyrie he created the shock himself."

"Creating that shock is much more taxing than using a natural event to do so. If Ozpin is correct about Mr. Uzumaki having a more childish nature, than the harsh methods he employed to shock Ms. Valkyrie are very much outside of what could be considered his true self. Acting in such stark contrast to his nature would suggest an incident sufficiently traumatic to force him into believing that he must teach. Psychologically it makes perfect sense; Mr. Uzumaki suffered a trauma that made him believe he must teach others. He then uses or causes trauma in others to teach them, thereby finding meaning in the trauma he himself experienced."

"An interesting notion, albeit terrifying." Ozpin hummed to himself, trying to sort through the veritable vortex of thoughts that were running through his head. "So to continue using your metaphor, his relationship with CRDL is much like that of a heart rate monitor."

"Exactly!" Oobleck nodded in fervent rapidity. "After being shocked, the team fell into Mr. Uzumaki's pace, or sinus rhythm. Since that point their deviation from the 'ideal' heart rate has been negligible enough that Mr. Uzumaki has not had to expend much energy interceding. Since shocking people is so against his nature, it then explains why he spends a great deal of time with them. He does not wish to shock people as it goes against his nature, thus he attempts to insulate himself with companions he believes will not require it."

Ozpin had not considered that line of thinking. Mental trauma explained a great deal more of the boy's behavior than anything he had managed to come up with. One as experienced as Ozpin was felt that he should have been able to figure it out himself, but that experience meant he knew that even one such as himself missed details. He had hired Bartholomew Oobleck not only because of his excellent skill as a huntsman, but his deep understanding of human psychology.

"Team RWBY notified me they would all be missing class today as they were under the weather. Do you believe that might have something to do with what we've been discussing?" Goodwitch was very concerned for the safety of her students in that moment and Ozpin understood why. Trauma had effectively forged many huntsmen into more effective weapons for decades, but it was never without its costs.

"More than believe," Port stated, sighing as he shook his head, "I know that he did. I essentially allowed him to do so under the belief that he just wanted to let Ms. Belladonna have it for something that happened at the docks."

"You weren't wrong Peter." Oobleck assured his friend and colleague gently. "This entire conversation is speculative in nature. Even if I am correct, you believed he was going to help them because he believed he was helping them. It is impossible to divine what results will come about from the intentions of a mind that is sick."

Everyone's mind fell ill from time to time. Guilt, sadness, grief, and fear could corrupt even the most pure of souls given enough time. They could do much the same in an instant if given the perfect crack from which they force themselves in. He had thought Mr. Uzumaki may have been concealing information from him to serve some dark agenda, but the possibility existed that it was done solely as a means to cope with some inner darkness that Ozpin did not know of.

No matter how many years he walked this earth people continued to surprise him, both in good ways and bad. No matter how much knowledge or experience he accrued it would never be enough to know or predict everything. That is why he had chosen to surround himself with a team; there were problems that Ozpin knew he could not solve on his own. He just had to believe that they could accomplish as a group what he could not as an individual.

"We need to verify this information without causing any more friction with Mr. Uzumaki. We should start by verifying what has happened with Team RWBY. Glynda, set up a meeting with their team for me sometime in the afternoon tomorrow." Goodwitch bowed her head slightly as she quickly began entering information into her scroll. "As soon as we have the results of that I will contact you all again. If we do find out that Mr. Uzumaki has gone too far…" Ozpin's voice trailed off without completing his sentence, but the implication was clear.

 _What should we do about it?_


	19. Noblesse Oblige

_**Greetings and salutations! Welcome to Chapter 18 of OFNT. Writing this chapter made me wish for sweet, sweet death as writing a whole scene about teenagers attempting psychoanalysis was like trying to eat thumbtacks without milk. Let me stop anyone who is going to complain right now, they are mature for their age, but the Beacon kids are just that, kids. They get distracted, they get off topic, that's healthy and natural. It is just that writing like that makes playing Atari ET sound enjoyable to me.**_

 _ **On a serious note I want to express my gratitude. Eight people have pledged my Pa+reon for far more than I thought possible. If that number continues to grow you have my guarantee the chapters will keep coming at as fast a tempo as I can assure they will be quality. To anyone who wishes to support my work I ask for a singular dollar if you can spare it. I want to be able to keep doing what I love. It is still a dream now, but maybe with you guys having my back I'll get that dream some day.**_

 ** _Anyone remember that world Naruto came from? No? Let's make sure we fix that. I present to you Chapter 18 of An Old Fox's New Trick. See you guys next time._**

* * *

 **Chapter 18**

 **Noblesse Oblige**

 _This is a major pain in the ass._ Konohamaru thought to himself as he reviewed a few reports. He chastised himself silently, despite being in his early sixties he wasn't able to think of a better way to describe his situation. Switching his eyes between the report in his left hand and report in his right he paused, a vain attempt to process what he was reading. His conclusion was to let his head fall straight with a resounding thud onto his desk, lifting it up only to let it fall down again. Because really, this situation warranted it.

 _Nevermind… I don't think there is a better way to describe it._ And he didn't think anyone could fault him for believing that. Naruto's exile had been a decision he had great personal stakes in, that much was obvious. The lifetime of memories he had shared with Naruto nii-chan would have made it impossible to ever vote in favor of such a decision. That was why all time and effort had been spent on the tsuchikage by those who wished to see the measure pass.

But that was something he hadn't ever been able to understand. Why exile him at all? On the surface the answer seemed fairly obvious: Naruto's interceding on the Cloud's decision to brand a group of protestors as criminals confirmed that he represented a threat to each nation's sovereignty. The establishment of The Maelstrom Village didn't exactly help matters in that regard.

When that village chose to make its primary business that of shinobi… things got a lot worse very quickly.

The Maelstrom Village took on the more mercenary nature of the hidden villages of old to provide for themselves. As most other villages had long since gutted their shinobi programs there existed an abundance of work for them to do. The shinobis in training would capture cats, assist in repairs, and other tasks to be expected of those at the genin level. Naruto would take on the more difficult missions that came to their village personally.

Konohamaru had asked him why he bothered to take on high level missions at all when Naruto had first started. The explanation he had provided was that it would build the Maelstrom's reputation as capable and reliable. When he was confident that his shinobi could handle the work without great risk he would gladly pass it onto them. Konohamaru had teased him saying that Naruto wasn't the best person to preach about staying inside the guidelines for mission difficulty. They both had laughed and drank well into the night as they recounted the stories of the past. Stories that by today's standards read more like fairytales than anything else.

Konohamaru knew that the Maelstrom's activities wouldn't be popular with the three kage aligned against him, but he came to the conclusion that it wasn't anything to worry about. Naruto nii-chan was far too powerful for them to consider military action against, the village was freshly founded and was thus not bound by any existing treaties, and the Leaf could not be pressured into doing anything while Konohamaru was hokage. The other villages could complain and throw whatever tantrum they wanted, there was nothing they could do about it.

Or at least that's what he had thought.

The mizukage, raikage, and kazekage did every single one of those things as a unit. They had all pressured Konohamaru to reclaim the land he had granted the Maelstrom, but he refused. Konohamaru had also made sure to arrange a successor should he become incapacitated, one he knew would not bow to their whims. Sarada had been nominated and tentatively approved by the feudal lords as the next Kage. She wasn't much younger than Konohamaru, but he had faith she would ensure the safety of Naruto's village until she could find a replacement who would do so as well.

They then tried to inundate Naruto with treaties of friendship; offers to help scale up the infrastructure of the Maelstrom Village with the understanding that the entire village would demilitarize. Each and every treaty was refused by the Maelstrom. Naruto had icily told the kage in a meeting that he had learned deals on paper could be manipulated beyond his capacity to understand, thus he was unwilling to engage them in one on good faith. The kazekage had good enough sense to squirm a bit in her seat upon hearing those words.

Konohamaru thought that was as far as things would go. The only remaining option was some sort of military action. The idea of exile had been thrown around at the time, but the tsuchikage was firmly opposed to such an action, denying the then hypothetical idea the votes it would need to pass. Engaging in military action against the Maelstrom would give the Leaf grounds to join in military action against the other villages as an ally of the Maelstrom if they chose to do so. They would be at far too great a military deficit to consider an aggressive course of action.

So they resorted to an assassination attempt.

The first case was a squad of three genin on a mission to forage for goods on the outskirts of the village perimeter. They were attacked by unknown assailants on what should have been a simple and safe mission inside their own borders. The assassin inflicted a grievous wound upon one of the members, a young girl twelve years of age, and fled. Her wounds should have been lethal as she was technically disemboweled, but she lived, walked and fought to this day.

It was unapologetically obvious that one of the three kage was behind it, but no evidence could be gathered to make a case. Such was his anger that Naruto had been ready to wage a one man war on the three hidden villages most likely to be responsible. It had taken both himself and Sasuke to talk Naruto down from such a course of action. If a war was waged without both definitive proof of wrongdoing as well as exhaustive attempts at diplomacy the Leaf would be forced to intervene. Though the two of them succeeded in their attempt to convince Naruto, that turning point would mark the beginning of the end.

After that incident the Maelstrom shinobis quickly went from being competent to being overwhelming. In the span of a year the average Maelstrom shinobi went from being ranked at low chuunin to low jounin. When Konohamaru had first heard that from Naruto he had found it impossible to believe, he thought his brother in all but blood was just bragging out of love and pride for his village. But there was no love in Naruto's voice, no pride… there was only grim purpose. In that one year the Maelstrom Village became a military superpower.

The superlative power of the Maelstrom shinobi was what would be used to sway the tsuchikage's vote. The argument was that if they got rid of the immortal shinobi responsible for training the Maelstrom ninjas their fighting strength would decay naturally over the course of a couple generations. The tsuchikage bore Naruto no ill will, but did not believe that any king should rule forever. The three kage convinced the tsuchikage that even if Naruto stepped down from his position his sway over the villagers would be too large for any replacement leader to overrule.

With the tsuchikage won over the kage summit had been called and Naruto forced into exile. With the results all but officially declared he had decided to say goodbye to his people. Naruto's farewell reflected the values he had developed as their leader, values that became their lifeblood.

He told them all to keep each other safe, never abandoning a teammate or an innocent. He told them to not act rashly and avoid conflict with the other villages; this exile was forced on him, but no one could make him leave without his consent. He asked his village to remember that although he did not choose his exile, he chose to abide by the will of the kage. He did not tell them to avoid provoking the kage responsible for his exile, he didn't think he had needed to.

That last bit was becoming increasingly problematic for Konohamaru. In a shocking twist of events that could not be foreseen by anyone the Maelstrom shinobi had not been happy about their leader, savior, and almost deity being ripped from his home and forced into cosmic exile… at least that's how the kazekage, mizukage, and raikage acted. The protests from the Maelstrom Village had been loud and unrelenting when Naruto had been here to keep them in reign. Since his departure their discontentment had taken a much nastier edge.

At least that was what everyone knew to be the case. In reality it seemed the Maelstrom was willing to use the very tactics employed to cow them two and some years ago. Officials, politicians, outspoken opponents of the Maelstrom Village began to turn up beaten within an inch of their life one after the other by masked individuals of no clear origin. The connection was so obvious that despite the lack of tangible evidence the three kage demanded action be taken against the Maelstrom Village.

Sasuke denied them. Naruto had not been the only one strong enough to level a nation single handedly, thus the Uchiha scion possessed the same ability to veto any decision the kage could make; an ability granted by might. In so issuing that ultimatum Sasuke knew that Konohamaru would have to exile him, so he resigned from his post and renounced all ties to the Leaf.

With his new freedom from allegiances Sasuke reminded them all that the Maelstrom had not been allowed to act when an attempt with equally clear implications was made on the life of one of theirs. Until definitive proof could be provided that the Maelstrom was responsible no outward action could be taken against them.

The kage had believed that the Maelstrom would lose its balance with Naruto's departure. They had dared to hope they would weaken and become docile with the absence of their leader. What was not expected was the seamless transition Naruto's vizier would make into being their leader. Under Alugard's guidance the attempts to capture the alleged Maelstrom shinobi who were silencing those dissident to their cause were nothing short of disastrous.

Nobody ever died in their attempts to capture whomever was silencing Maelstrom dissidents, but Konohamaru had suspected that was by design. The lands of the raikage, mizukage, and kazekage were the sole focus of the attacks. None of those villages had the power to compete with the Maelstrom as shinobi, so they were forced to use weaponry.

Weapons that stored jutsu to shoot fire, lightning, or even weaponry like shrunken had become increasingly popular with the passage of time. With those weapons in hand a person need not do more than point and pull the trigger. The sheer dominance such weapons offered a police force over civilians was immense. A normal person could far supersede the power of another simply by owning a jutsu storing weapon.

But to fight jounin level ninja with such things was asinine. No matter how large a detail was assigned to protect a VIP speaking out against the Maelstrom the results were the same, total defeat. The three villages just kept throwing more and more bodies at the assailants in the hope that they would eventually catch a lucky break, but to no avail. The police, military, and conscripted service that protected these VIPs began to fill hospitals so fast that all three villages were forced to begin construction on new ones.

This was why Konohamaru believed the lack of death was intentional. Refusing to cross that line both lowered the chances of the feudal lords involving themselves and forcing the passive Leaf and Rock to act. Not only that, it was taxing the infrastructure of the Maelstrom's opposition heavily. The Cloud, Mist, and Sand were running a financial deficit under the strain of trying to deal with domestic terrorism while the Maelstrom's warchest grew larger and larger as they continued to take high paying jobs.

After being hospitalized many dissidents of the Maelstrom would refuse to dissent again. Not only that, as time had passed there were fewer and fewer people willing to speak out against the Maelstrom in a public setting for fear of retribution. Slowly but surely the voices that spoke against the Maelstrom grew quieter and quieter. As if they were a predator laying in wait the allegedly dormant Maelstrom finally pounced.

People began to speak across the world in favor of the Maelstrom. Stories were told about the reason the Maelstrom Village was founded, a story of repression by the raikage and Naruto's heroism in saving the lives of those who sought to protest as a means to protect their fellow man. The kage sought to have such speakers arrested, but with whom would they make the arrest? A majority of the police force were in and out of the hospital for acting in opposition to the Maelstrom. The bulk of the police that had managed to avoid hospitalization were able to do so precisely because they turned a blind eye to situations such as these.

Many suspected the Maelstrom of silencing their opposition, a claim which was denounced unilaterally across the board by those who spoke in favor of them. Although many remained skeptical, there were even more that were won over to the Maelstrom's side. It is often the loudest voice that wins the argument as far as normal people are concerned. Those in favor of the Maelstrom had been very loud for two months now, whereas those against them had been almost entirely silent.

If this was going to be the result what had been the point in exiling Naruto? The Maelstrom under Naruto's leadership had been peaceable, but now that the head had been severed there'd body was thrashing around violently. The latter part had been the kazekage's words, words that Konohamaru disagreed with. If all of this was done by the Maelstrom as everyone suspected then Alugard had been surgically accurate with the management of his shinobis. Hospitals full of injured servicemen and not a shred of evidence that could be used to implicate anyone.

The results had been so disastrous that the decision to exile Naruto was now being called into question by the people of the Elemental Nations. The people were being wooed so that the court of popular opinion would apply pressure to the kage who could reverse the decision. Pressure was also being applied by the police force and military who sought to avoid direct confrontation with the Maelstrom. Pressure was being applied on the economies being forced to pay for mass hospitalizations, hospitalizations that were only happening because of their morally corrupt governments, or so it was said. Everywhere Konohamaru looked it felt like pressure was being applied.

Konohamaru sighed as he set down the reports he had been holding, his eyes drawn to a cup of tea on his desk. These days it felt like their world was like a kettle filled with water that had an airtight seal. Someone, most likely the Maelstrom, had turned on a burner underneath the world and were content to let the pressure build as high as it needed to in order to get Naruto home, or some other objective. The mizukage, tsuchikage, and raikage appeared just as obstinate in refusing. Given enough time the pressure would continue to build, and build, and build until the kettle exploded under the strain of containing it.

And he had to figure out how to prevent that, even if it meant he could never see Naruto again. War could not be allowed to return to their land.

* * *

Pyrrha honestly had no idea what to make of the situation she found herself in.

Right after their class with Professor Oobleck Naruto had told them he was going out to train CRDL. He hadn't spent any time with them recently, so that was regretfully something she had grown to expect. She had resolved to confront her leader at the next available opportunity to join her at her favorite rooftop for a moonlit spar. It had been far too long since he had spent any time with her — or her team!

What she hadn't expected was Yang to approach as soon as Naruto and CRDL cleared the corner, asking if the remainder of NVR could come back with her to the RWBY dorm. It wasn't like it was that weird for the two teams to spend time together, but all of RWBY had been absent from all of their classes that day because they were 'under the weather'. Something that was originally a little difficult for Pyrrha to believe, but seeing Yang's face convinced her it was true.

She told Yang that NVR was going to go and train together for a few hours despite not having their leader with them, but asked if they could drop by later. Yang just gave an awkward laugh and a weak grin and said that would be fine. The whole situation felt incredibly strange… so much so that Pyrrha considered following after Yang immediately, cancelling their training altogether. Still, she had said that it would be okay and NVR was behind on their training due in no small part to them having waited for their leader to arrange some.

As such, Pyrrha decided she would stick to her original plan and set off to train with Ren and Nora. As it was their first serious training session as a team despite having already been at Beacon for a month, Pyrrha made sure they worked on teamwork and coordination for three solid hours. Both Ren and Nora had agreed to the long training hours in no small part due to the looming specter that was the upcoming missions. They were still a reasonable distance off, but the 'strongest team in Beacon' as they had heard themselves called was probably the least team-like team in Beacon.

After their training the three of them were about to head to the RWBY dorm just as promised. Nora had insisted that they bring some chips and drinks to make sure they had enough as she had complete confidence this was going to be some sort of party, so they detoured to pick up some stockpiled snacks from their own dorm.

That hope was proven vain before they even entered the room. The air was so thick near the door to RWBY's room that Pyrrha thought she might choke just by being in the collective hallway their rooms shared. The sentiment was shared as Ren and even Nora had similar expressions as they retreated into the safety of their own room.

"What… was that?" Pyrrha asked uncertainty.

"It sure doesn't feel like a party, does it?" Nora's giggled awkwardly as she set the chips and soda down. Her attempt at levity found no purchase with their group.

"Considering the fact that Yang waited to invite us until Naruto had already left us it is likely she did not wish for him to attend." Ren observed, much to Pyrrha's chagrin. She had noted the exact same thing and found herself wishing that she was wrong, hoping her thoughts were the outlier.

"Do you think Naruto did something bad at the docks?" Nora asked. Ren shook his head.

"None of RWBY's members seemed to be averse to him when we located Naruto. I doubt anything that could feel so toxic would have been concealable last night."

"Which means something happened when he asked us to go ahead without him." Pyrrha's conclusion earned Ren's nodded affirmation. Naruto had told them that he wished to wait for RWBY and to go ahead without him. Pyrrha had offered to stay with their leader, as had the other two, but Naruto insisted while citing the reason that only he had a means to protect himself from the rain. Pyrrha felt she should have found the sight of Naruto holding a pink and white parasol to be funny, but she didn't. Looking at him beneath his parasol as he stood vigil in the rain filled her with dread.

"Have you heard anything about what might have happened?" Ren asked Pyrrha directly. She shook her head, descending into speculation about what could have possibly happened. What could have happened in such a short span of time that caused the aura of despondency? Ren was clearly of the same mind as her as he rested his chin in his hand, taking a seat on his bed as his eyes grew pensive.

"I mean, why worry about figuring it out?" Nora posed the question, her hand poised to open the door once more.

"RWBY has never missed a class before, there must be something wr-""

"I know something is wrong silly, even I'm not that clueless." Nora interrupted with a giggle lilting her voice. "But if we do figure out what is wrong we'll go over to RWBY's place and try to make them feel better. If we can't figure out what is wrong we will just go over to RWBY's place and ask them, then try to make them feel better. We're going to do the same basic thing no matter how long Ren puts on his broodier eyes, so why not just get this party started." She grinned as she picked up and hefted the two liter sodas in one hand and chips in the other.

Pyrrha couldn't help but smile at that, one born out of equal parts relief and gratitude. She shared in Ren's propensity to overthink things, a tendency which Nora provided a stark, refreshing, and obviously necessary contrast to. Naruto was like a metronome, switching between incredibly casual on one end and deadly serious at the other, swinging at a tempo too erratic to mark closely.

"Nora… you have a knack for making me feel foolish." Ren sighed defeatedly, yet amusement was playing subtly with his face.

"You always think too much! Sometimes you just gotta grab life by the ba-"

"Thank you, Nora." Ren cut Nora off, much to her consternation. Before she could fire off a retort he gestured towards the door. "Shall we?"

Sometimes you just didn't want to do things, even if you knew they were the right things to be doing. Pyrrha had never enjoyed dealing with the press during her time as a prize fighter. Some others held similar views, declining to interview or engage the media whenever avoidable. Others were different, chasing after the press with the belief that spreading their name was the golden ticket to success. Pyrrha took neither of those approaches.

She would engage reporters with a smile on her face, answering questions as if she enjoyed doing so. Whether or not she wanted to spend the afterglow of a fight talking to a video camera about how grateful she was to be there wasn't a part of her decision making process. Her family supported her, her sponsors supported her, and each and every fan who watched the broadcasts or bought a ticket supported her. If doing some stupid interview made them happy, paid them back in some way, she was happy to do it, even if she didn't like it.

Pyrrha was nothing if not consistent. Her instincts told her something disastrous had happened, most likely between Naruto and RWBY. She knew that meant that she'd either learn that RWBY had done something wrong, Naruto had done something wrong, or they both had done something wrong. Once more, whichever option it was wouldn't greatly change what she'd have to do; she'd have to confront someone she cared about and tell them they were making or had made a mistake. Social confrontation was something that frightened Pyrrha and was the main reason she had not yet confronted her leader about his constant absence.

This was different, though. She was jealous of CRDL for the time Naruto spent with them, she was upset that he chose to prioritize them over his own team, and she was lonely. Not only did she believe Naruto and her were going to be close friends, but the thrill of being bested had yet to wear off. The combination of all of those emotions was most certainly not a pleasant feeling…

But even from the hallway they all had felt the murky smog of unadulterated suffering. The members of RWBY were her friends. Even if she didn't want to deal with the social confrontation she was certain this situation would demand, even though she wished someone else would fix it instead, even though part of her wanted to run and hide she just couldn't do it. Right was right — no matter how much she was afraid and unwilling to deal with the situation it didn't matter. She would do the right thing, both because she cared about her friends and because it was right.

"Yes." Pyrrha nodded as she clenched her fists, a physical manifestation of her hardening will.

"Well let's get going then!" Nora rallied her lethargic troops. Pyrrha did feel a little bit of weight lifted off her shoulders as she watched Nora's eyes sparkle, undeterred by the weight of the situation they would soon find themselves in.

And so Ren opened the door, allowing the two ladies to pass through before exiting himself, closing the door behind them. The RWBY dorm was basically just across the hall from them, meaning that just exiting their room was half the journey in itself. Unluckily, yet unsurprisingly, the overpowering aura of suffering blanketed the hallway just as thick as the minutes before. However, it seemed that this time the expected came hand in hand with the unexpected.

"Good evening." Dove Bronzewing greeted them, his manner of address managing to feel formal despite its simplicity. The entirety of CRDL was in tow, Cardin and Sky carrying brown paper grocery bags. "Were the three of you also here to check up on RWBY? Or is it that you have already done so? If so, are they alright?"

"You're here to check on them?" Nora asked. The question was a fair one, even if a little bit rude. CRDL may have begun to turn themselves around, but they weren't exactly friends of RWBY or NNVR, Naruto excluded.

"We were just a bit worried." Sky started, but seemed to reconsider his words. "Honestly we thought it might help win us a few points and smooth things over if we gave them a hand when they were sick." He laughed as he held open one of the bags in his hands to reveal a collection of multiple types of canned soups. Maybe it wasn't the healthiest of foods, but their intent was obviously earnest.

"You seem to be rather unaffected by this." Ren waved his hand around the air.

"Naruto said that he had an argument with Blake last night so we were prepared for her to be bummed out." Cardin explained. Pyrrha didn't know that… she knew Ren and Nora didn't either, so why did they? "Can't say we were ready for this, though. Feel like I just walked into a wake or some shit."

"Felt like I was back home with my parents for a second." Russel sniggered.

"Ya know that makes a lot of sense with you being their kid and all. Shit, I'd be depressed too." Russel punched Cardin in the arm, provoking Cardin to put him into a headlock as he noogied his teammates hair. Sky and Dove laughed and teased their teammates as they horsed around. Maybe that was part of their team's dynamic, or maybe it was an aspect of them all being men. Pyrrha had once heard that men would often joke about the tragedy in their lives in a subconscious effort to minimize its impact.

Despite not totally understanding it, she envied it. They seemed to be a tightly knit team. Much closer than hers was at least.

"So we gonna get a move on?" Russel squawked, attempting to tap out of Cardin's headlock.

"RWBY had invited us to their dorm earlier today. Based on what you told us I believe it is safe to assume they wish to talk about our leader. I'm not sure whether or not they will wish to speak to us alone." Ren said.

"It's fine." Yang's voice came from the still closed door, silencing their hallway conversation in one fell swoop. The sounds of the locking mechanism being turned was the sole noise in their ears until the handle turned and the door opened. Yang stood there with her hand on the handle as she opened the door wide enough to allow entry. The fact that she declined to release her hand from the door handle limited that space, but she made no motion to change her position. "You guys should all come in."

Having apparently not seen any reason for acquiescence Dove and Russel both scooted their way past Yang to enter the room without a second thought. A brief pause occurred before Sky joined his team's majority. Dove hesitated, clearly waiting for NVR to enter before doing so himself. Not wanting to allow herself too much time for social anxiety to kick in Pyrrha also took the plunge. With that the remaining three followed behind her.

"You all look like hell." Russel commented bluntly, immediately earning Cardin's fist smashing down atop his head. Russel didn't make a move to retaliate this time, perhaps realizing his words had not been the most prudent. That wasn't to say they weren't accurate, though. The edges of Ruby's eyes were red, Weiss' normally impeccable had more than just a few strands lose, the way Blake looked defied any description Pyrrha could give, and every RWBY member looked like they hadn't slept in days.

"That would be because we feel like hell." Weiss swore uncharacteristically. "The cause of that was why we invited NVR over today, but I don't remember agreeing to invite you."

"Cmon Weiss, don't be so frosty." Yang chided her teammate, earning herself an icy glare.

"Yang's… right… they spend enough time with him… they may know why he did it…" Blake spoke, though the verb felt like more of a misnomer. It was apparent that just forcing out each fragmented phrase was physically taxing her.

"We had a feeling this was going to be about our fearless leader." Nora admitted.

"You did?" Sky asked with no small amount of confusion. "We all just thought they may have been sick or something. We brought some soup and utensils if you are hungry." Sky motioned to set the bags down, but there wasn't really a space for it. The eight of them (including Yang) were all crowded around the door.

"Should we…?" Nora asked. Weiss sighed, waving a hesitant but sincere welcome to them. Yang joined Blake, sitting on the bottom bunk of their two bed stack alongside her. Weiss was sitting on the chair at her desk with her legs crossed having turned it around to face everyone. Pyrrha joined the lone Ruby on her bed at Yang's pointed glances suggested she should. Dove and Russel moved to lean against the bathroom door while Cardin and Sky stayed where they were. Nora and Ren found an unoccupied corner of the room where they both sat on the floor next to each other.

To call the silence that ensued awkward would be like calling grass green or Yang blonde. Having verified that something had happened between RWBY and Naruto last night, Pyrrha wasn't sure if it was her place to take initiative and ask what had happened.

 _Would it be more polite to wait and give them time to process? Would taking initiative make this easier for them? Maybe I should ask them what happened, but maybe that would just rush them and make them uncomfortable. I could-_

"Did Naruto tell you what happened?" Ruby croaked, her voice hoarse. The NVR members shook their heads, but the CRDL members spared a look towards each other.

"Saying he told us what happened would be a stretch," Sky spoke, "but he did say that he had a pretty intense disagreement with Blake."

"Yeah," Cardin affirmed as he set the paper bags down by his feet, prompting Sky to remember he was still holding his own before he too followed suit, "said he told her off for being an idiot and that was that. Naruto figured that was why you all skipped, but we just figured you were sick."

"A disagreement between classmates did not seem like something that would prevent you from attending class, so we assumed he was mistaken in his belief. He did say there was no bad blood between the two of them." Dove concluded, his last words causing Blake to convulse violently, a fact that nobody in the room missed or chose to comment on.

 _He didn't even bother to tell us that much._ Pyrrha thought glumly. She'd already had similar thoughts multiple times in the past few minutes, yet her brain deemed it pertinent to unhelpfully keep bringing it to the forefront.

"Yeah, Ok." Yang scoffed incredulously. "Calling that a disagreement between classmates is like saying an ursa prime is just a big bear."

"I mean…" Russel started before Cardin shot him a glare clearly saying it wasn't the time.

"I'm afraid we didn't even know that much." Pyrrha confessed, trying her best to not to be a little hurt by that fact.

"Indeed. Is there any chance you would be willing to fill in the gaps?" Ren asked, earning Nora's approval.

"We really have no idea what's going on." Nora admitted. RWBY shared a collective reluctance to comply with the request. At that point there wasn't much else the two teams could say, the ball was in RWBY's court. For a few minutes there was nothing but quiet.

"I would ask you all to trust us before we start." Weiss requested, her usually commanding tone significantly humbled. "This will not be the easiest pill to swallow.

"Seriously." Yang said. Everyone agreed, so Weiss and Yang began their recounting of what happened last night.

It started with what happened at the docks, the details of that event having been completely omitted by Naruto when they had asked him. They were told how Blake had chosen not to listen to Naruto's decision as acting leader, told how he had fought off almost thirty people single handedly, one of whom was Roman Torchwick (a detail they knew) and another was even stronger than him.

Yet everyone knew he emerged more or less uninjured as he'd been walking around that day just like normal. It was very much so less injured, as they were told that to Blake's knowledge Naruto had not been scathed. An impressive feat to be sure, but obviously not the source of their present predicament.

So Weiss and Yang told them what was. They told them what had happened on that rainy night that Naruto remained behind to wait for RWBY. The two of them had to take turns, stepping in when the other lost their voice or their nerve. Throughout the whole process Blake and Ruby remained almost completely silent, save for the occasional trembling of Blake's hands on her sheets and Ruby's occasional choked gasps.

When they finished recounting what had transpired it was like the world had stopped spinning. There were eleven people in that room, but they didn't even make enough noise for one. The amount of information that needed processing was altogether not that large, yet the struggle of their minds attempting to do so was clearly visible on each of their faces.

Five minutes of silence became ten, ten became fifteen, and fifteen became twenty. Just breathing was hard enough for Pyrrha as it was, adding speaking to the mix was impossible. Clearly she wasn't the only one whose tongue was tied as the lack of sound continued to stretch in length, threatening to never end.

"That makes sense." Sky broke the glass of silence before it hardened like cement around them.

"How the hell does that make sense!? The dude's crazy!" Russel fired back heatedly.

"Blake made a decision that could have risked the life of her team. The only reason she wasn't was because Naruto was able to handle the situation, but she wasn't thinking about whether or not she could handle it. She did what she wanted in spite of the risks it posed to others." Sky shrugged. "I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm pretty firmly set against it actually. I'm just saying it makes sense given what we already know about him."

"He was scary-angry with me when I messed up in class." Nora said.

"Didn't much like me or the shrimp when we screwed up either, but you definitely got it the worst." Cardin agreed.

"Which once again makes sense." Sky reminded them. "Every time anyone does something that risks the life of their team he reacts negatively. With the number of examples we have it is pretty easy to tell that he reacts worse the more he believes someone will put another's life at risk."

"Like how he just got a little mad at Ruby for making a mistake, but got more mad at Cardin because he didn't learn from Ruby's?" Nora asked, to which Ren nodded.

"That appears to be the case."

"Which makes sense because he got the most mad at me. Everyone else didn't make the best decisions, but I made the worst one."

"Exactly." Ren agreed.

"He was ready to quit training us before we even started because I didn't take something Sky did seriously." Cardin added vaguely, but Pyrrha knew what he was talking about. Sky had abandoned Winchester at Forever Fall despite knowing it was a death sentence. "Dude was already walking away before I had to grab him to hold him still to talk it out."

"Pretty sure he only stopped to make sure you were okay after he flipped you like a pancake." Russel joked, much to Cardin's apparent ire.

"That thing Cardin's talking about is when I abandoned him to die because I was too scared to do anything else." Cardin flinched at Sky's stark admittance. "And that also pushes the same theory; he was absolutely furious with me at the time and really let me have it. After that I was basically dead to him until I began to try and repent. Once he saw that I was working to not be a burden on my team he actually moved past it pretty quickly."

"Blake is not a burden to our team." Ruby's frail voice still managed to convey the absolute confidence in her words.

"And he did not just get angry with Blake— he stabbed himself..." Weiss restrained her desire to shout, toning her volume down near the end.

"Blake stabbed him." Pyrrha corrected, much to the vocal disagreement of Weiss, Yang, Ruby and even Russel. She breathed deeply as she waited for her chance to speak, letting them get out their frustrations so they would be more receptive to her message. When the four of them finally finished, she spoke again.

"I'm not saying this is Blake's fault, but if we're trying to figure out why he did this then every detail matters. He didn't stab himself, he armed Blake and made her stab him." Pyrrha paused to breathe. She was trying to remain calm, but imagining her leader, her friend doing this was more than just emotionally distressing. "If the goal was self-harm there were much easier ways to do it, but he chose to do it this way. That has to mean something."

"If we're trying to analyze this it isn't hard to guess why he did it." Weiss said. "He believes Blake made a choice that risked people's lives, but she pointed out that everyone ended up fine. Since the both of them refused to back down, he believed his only course of action to be making one of them not-fine. An action I completely disagree with." She quickly added at the end upon seeing Blake's misery intensify.

"Morally I find myself siding with everyone else, but pragmatically he actually has a very compelling point." Dove remarked. "When you think about it, what was lost? He experienced pain, you all experienced substantial distress, but no one died."

"He bled so much…" Blake's words were no louder than the softest of whispers.

"And by now his aura has probably helped his body replenish it. It isn't like he ever makes a dent in his aura reserves anyways, so once more pragmatically that blood was free to him. Judging by your demeanor I find it doubtful you are in any rush to repeat anything like this again, thus it is hard to say that his lesson was practically wrong."

"It doesn't matter…" Ruby spoke softly, her eyes gaining steel as she turned to look at Dove. "It doesn't matter if this worked or not. We're supposed to help each other! Take care of one another! He shouldn't have to hurt us all like this just to teach us, and he shouldn't have to hurt himself either!"

"Like I said, pragmatically his decisions are sound," Dove shook his head as if he was trying to dislodge that very pragmatism from his brain, "but morally I find myself aligned with you. I am not of the opinion that the ends we achieve always justify the means by which we attained them."

There wasn't much more to say on that line of thought. Pyrrha couldn't deny that effectiveness of what Naruto had done, she doubted Blake would ever be able to look at things the same way again. In a black and white sort of way it made sense to choose suffering a small injury off the battlefield to prevent larger ones on it. There was just something about the whole situation that Pyrrha found herself loathing, she just couldn't figure out what.

"He stabbed himself with a knife, right?" Russel asked. Dove nodded beside him. "Did he let you keep it?" This time it was Blake that nodded, Russel gave a dark chuckle in response. "Man that guy's a piece of work. Do yourself a favor and get rid of that thing."

"Wasn't exactly something I was hoping we'd keep, but you got a reason?" Yang asked.

"I wasn't the easiest kid for my parents to manage growing up — shut up!" He preempted any attempt Cardin might have made at joke. "Anyways, they didn't exactly know what to do about it so my old man started getting pretty physical. Whenever he did, he'd always use the same belt to do the job." Russel shivered at the memory.

"I still can't think about that belt without freaking out. Whenever he'd want me on my best behavior he'd wear that thing as a not-so-subtle reminder of what was behind door number two. That shit stuck with me so bad that I saw the same type of belt in a department store once and broke into a sweat. He probably gave it to you to remind you to not be an idiot, but just do yourself a favor and remember that without the keepsake."

"In light of your incredibly touching story I won't point out that it obviously didn't teach you to not be an idiot." Cardin magnanimously promised, causing Russel's teeth to grind together like gravel.

"What the hell do you think you just did asshole!?" The two squabled and fought while the rest of them watched, no one making a move to interrupt them. The teasing and fighting between them was something holding them all to the ground right now. In a conversation so over their heads it felt like something that prevented anyone from descending into hysterics.

"What made him like this?" Ruby asked uncertainly. "He seemed so happy when we met… he said he'd be my friend."

"He really did take a sharp turn for the worse." Ren added. "I can't say he was ever too close to us, but it felt like we were coming together as a team at a normal pace. A few weeks ago that halted and started working in reverse; he has been building distance from us ever since." Pyrrha found herself agreeing with Ren. Naruto had joked around with them, hung out with them, sparred with her in his free time, and so much more. He had been their leader… once.

"Sure as hell can't be easy being him." Cardin shrugged. "Spends something like twelve hours a week training us, Goodwitch either hates the guy or wants to jump him so that's probably stressful, and he goes out on adventures to capture double-digit White Fang members while also fighting Vale's most notorious criminal. Throw in homework, sleep, training and being a team leader I doubt he has much free time. I'm the leader of a team that he's helping train and I feel like I never rest and I have to imagine he's got it worse than me."

"Why is that?" Pyrrha asked. "We haven't even trained together as a team once in the month we've all been together. Why is he spending so much time with you?"

"We asked, he agreed." Cardin answered simply.

"More like we begged, he agreed," Sky corrected, "but he's not off base saying there wasn't much to it. Have any of you tried talking to him?"

"He's a bastard sometimes, don't get me wrong, but the dude's also simple." Russel agreed. "Work hard, don't be a dick, and take being a huntsmen seriously and he's pretty alright. Hasn't happened quickly, that's for sure, but sometimes he will join in and crack a few jokes with us nowadays."

"By which he means Naruto makes jokes at our expense." Dove corrected much like Sky had, earning a baleful stare from Russel. "Have you asked your leader to train you? If Cardin is right it is likely that he is not seeking to avoid you, rather he is accustomed to filling his time in such a way as to be constantly productive. He is a strange person, despite being your leader it is possible you just aren't on his radar."

Pyrrha and Nora both looked downcast. Normally it was the leader's responsibility to bring the team together, that's true, but Naruto had done so much more than any other leader at Beacon had. Her conversation with him at the Emerald Forest confirmed that he was scared of making friends. Being alone might have just been the way he had lived his life apart from his old team. If they wanted their leader to be a part of their team, why hadn't they done anything?

"Not that I want to interrupt, but I'm not even sure what we're trying to accomplish anymore." Weiss said with a small sigh.

"I guarantee you that the teachers aren't gonna buy that you all just got sick at the same, especially after spending all of yesterday walking around. They'll guess that Naruto did something and ask to talk to you. Probably should figure out whether you want to get him expelled or cover for him." Cardin answered.

"Although I'm not against lying to avoid cutting his career at Beacon short," Weiss said, shocking everyone in the room, Blake included, "it is not something we should consider doing unless we can prevent something like this from happening again. I for one do not care what he was trying to accomplish, he can't just go around traumatizing us because he believes it to be in our best interests."

"Follow Russel's advice," Sky suggested, "take being a huntress seriously, don't be a d-"

"I made a mistake." Blake finally spoke up, strength returning to her form like a fresh breath of life. "I did something terrible; I risked other's lives because I was selfish. I wanted to stop the White Fang so badly that I could have put both Sun and Naruto in danger." Her nails dug into her skin as her fists clenched so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

"But that does not mean he can do things like that! It doesn't make it okay! You can't just jump straight to violence because people aren't listening to you, doing things the right way matters!" Blake's strength shattered as she broke down into tears of rage. Yang hugged her partner close as she broke down, everyone watching without saying a word as they tried to think.

"I think he's broken." Nora's words were filled with a complex melancholy. "I don't think he wants to be this way, I'm actually pretty sure he hates it, but he just hates the thought of the people around him dying more. I think he knows he hurt you Blake, he just thought this way was better than any other choice."

"Why not just keep talking to her?" Ruby asked. "Blake thinks she was wrong now, he changed her mind. If he just kept trying he could have helped her without hurting anyone. Why would you hurt your friends?" Ruby just couldn't comprehend it.

"I imagine Naruto used to do that." Ren said. "That's the normal way to do things, it's the way we're taught to do things. People don't go to extremes like this because the normal ways have worked for them, they do it because they've failed. I think the prioritization he puts on speed above all else paints a pretty clear picture…"

"He lost someone because he wasn't fast enough?" Blake suggested, her voice somewhat hoarse from her previous outburst.

"Because he didn't teach them quickly enough, because he wasn't serious enough, because he was too friendly… I can't say for sure what exactly went wrong. I highly doubt that he decided to do things this way because he enjoys alienating people and spreading misery, though. He used to joke around much more than he does now, and he seemed to be genuinely happy at that time. I believe in this case he weighed his options and made a choice."

"What? A choice between stabbing himself and talking it out? Kind of hard to see why he went with the first one." Russel snarked. Ren was clearly nonplussed by what had been said.

"You aren't wrong in that those were the choices, but I believe Naruto would have phrased it more like this: A choice between talking it out over time and risking that Blake would realize the message too late, or sacrificing himself, thereby hurting those who care about him in order to increase the likelihood the lesson is learned quickly. I think he chose to risk being hated and despised, and sacrificed the happiness of those around him, as well as his own. His belief being that no matter how much what he did hurt all of RWBY, it was at least more likely they'd stay alive."

"So he did what he did because he thought by the time I learned it may have been too late?" Blake wasn't asking for confirmation, but merely trying to wrap her mind around things. "I still disagree with what he did, but now I don't even understand why he'd go that far for me in the first place. It isn't like we're good friends, or even friends at all."

"Naruto said he did what he did because he could take it." Ruby muttered, but her voice rapidly picked up steam. "He's a great leader when he tries, he's the most powerful huntsman in our class, and he tries to help everyone when they need it!" Yang understood where her sister was going.

"Since he believes he can take it, he believes he has to take it. He'll take all the punishment because he's strong enough to so that everyone else makes it through the day."

"A noblesse oblige, of sorts." Weiss surmised.

"Now we're getting somewhere!" Cardin grinned

"To summarize what we've gotten up to this point," Dove said, "Naruto believes that he must bear immense weight because he is capable. Though not confirmed, it is likely that he acted as he did because of a past incident in which a more well balanced approach led him to lose something. In my opinion that just leaves two important questions. What caused Naruto to change so rapidly over such a short period of time, and what can be done about it?"

For the first time in awhile it was Pyrrha's turn to speak. This was a question that she felt she'd know better than anyone else.

"I came to Beacon hoping to get away from my fame in Mistral." Pyrrha started, drawing all eyes to her. "I was so famous and strong that everything in my life was based around that. People would try to befriend me to court favors, to brag about it to others, or any number of reasons like that. I'm grateful for my time as a prize fighter, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't come at great personal sacrifice."

"I didn't have many friends at school, I couldn't make many. The people who were interested in me because of my strength couldn't keep up with me, while the people who weren't didn't want to deal with the paparazzi and reporters that followed me around like a swarm. I thought if I moved far enough away I could escape my reputation, escape all of the drama, and escape my loneliness."

"I'm lucky that I met my team and RWBY. Being friends with you all, eating lunch together, and just spending time with people that look at me for being a person was everything I had hoped it would be. I'm so thankful to each and every one of you." Pyrrha did a waist-deep bow in pure gratitude. When she looked up, everyone was smiling and some were embarrassed. After all the things that had been felt today… it was a nice change to say the least.

"I think Naruto came here for something similar. He just wanted to be normal, to not stick out. I think he told Ruby he wanted to be friends with her because deep down that really is what he wants. Unlike me, I don't think he got what he wished for."

"Goodwitch makes him spar three times as much as anyone else as she continues to restrict how he can fight in order to see how strong he is. The headmaster has called him to his office multiple times despite Naruto having done nothing wrong. He's forced to teach the people who should be his peers, his friends. I think he came to this school for the same reasons I did — to escape his reputation and start a new life. I got my chance to be a normal girl, but the teachers at Beacon have done nothing but force Naruto into the spotlight again and again, forcing him to be the ideal huntsman for others to learn from."

"And he's just taking it." Cardin growled.

"Because he can." Yang joined him.

"And so he believes he must." Weiss said curtly.

"He feels alone… he doesn't want to be." Ruby stood up.

"And because of that he feels he has to go to extremes, but he can change. He can find his way back." Blake joined Ruby.

"I think we can help him do that Blake." Pyrrha said as she too rose from the bed, standing beside Ruby. "If Naruto wants the life of a normal student we just need to find a way to give it to him." Pyrrha held her hand out to the center of the room.

"Oh hell yeah!" Yang whooped as she put her hand on top of Pyrrha's.

"He did help me out when we first got here… I suppose it is only proper." Weiss put her hand on top of Yang's.

"Perfect tsundere!" Nora cheered as she threw her hand in.

"She does fit the archetype, doesn't she?" Ren laughed as he joined as well.

"What does that mean?" Weiss asked pointedly as Sky and Dove joined in.

"You know, this is a lot easier in the movies." Russel complained as he tried to put his hand in, but the circle was already pretty full due to the cramped dimensions of the room.

"Helps if you're not a dwarf." Cardin jeered as he easily reached his long arm overtop of everyone to get his hand to the center. Russel swore at his leader rather vehemently.

"Blake?" Ruby asked, her voice hopeful.

"I lost a good friend once. He too believed in results over methods… if I can help someone turn back from that path," Blake threw her hand as well, "I should."

"Now all we need is a kickass name." Russel said, jumping up and down to try and see everyone.

"How about the 'Stop Naruto from Being a Jackass' group." Cardin suggested.

"Come on," Sky rolled his eyes "he's not that-" one look from Blake was enough to cut him off. "I guess that's fair."

"That name is too long!" Nora declared, their hands still together. "Naruto… jackass…" She muttered under her breath. Twenty or so seconds passed and people were beginning to rustle around from being so uncomfortably close to each other. "I GOT IT!" Nora burst out.

"And?" Ren asked.

"With N, J, and A we have almost all of the letters for ninja! We can be the ninja club!"

"Any objections?" Pyrrha asked. Weiss looked like she was about to say something, but managed to restrain herself.

"All right, let's go ninja on three. One, two, th-"

"NINJA!" Nora yelled as she threw her hand up with enough force to send all the hands above her own straight up into the air, leaving only Pyrrha, Yang, and Weiss below her. "Oh… you meant after three... I thought you meant on three."

"Ninja?" CRDL questioningly cheered, removing their hands from the air due to the sheer overpowering awkwardness.

"Ninja…" Weiss sighed as she declined to throw her hand in the air and instead withdrew it from the pile.

"Ninja!" Pyrrha and Yang shouted in unison as they managed to be the only two to do the cheer successfully. The ridiculousness of the situation was like pulling a stopper from a large drain; any negativity that was there before just drained away amidst the sound of laughter.

"Not to be too serious," Ren began to speak in a tone that was very much serious, earning an instant booing from Nora "but do we have any plans on how to make him feel more normal?"

"Oh don't you worry." Yang's face took on a malicious grin. "I have just the thing in mind."


	20. Tied Down

_**Greetings and salutations! Kamorge0 here with chapter 19 of OFNT. I'm glad that we finally made it past "people standing around talking and analyzing things". In the spirit of celebration, I decided to start the chapter with our favorite eight tailed friend sitting around analyzing things!**_

 ** _It is brief and painless, I promise. This chapter truly does mark the beginning of the second arc. Plans begin to be executed, characters are introduced, the ripples of Naruto's existence begin to show in more than just Beacon, I had some fun writing this. I'm very excited for the next chapter or two as I look forward to making Cinder and Naruto clash both physically and verbally._**

 _ **I want to give a big shoutout to everyone who has helped this fic stay afloat on Pa+reon. I managed to find a short temp job that will help substitute my income while I continue to try and make my writing grow. To anyone willing to spare even a single dollar please search Kamorge0 on pa+reon and help support my work. I will be starting a poll in two days regarding the omake for the next chapter.**_

 _ **Enough dallying and dillying! I am happy to present to you Chapter 19 of An Old Fox's New Trick. See you guys next time!**_

* * *

 **Chapter 19**

 **Tied Down**

There were a lot of different kinds of idiots.

Some idiots were scared or uncertain. Whether that was about life, what they wanted, or the decisions they made. Other idiots were nothing if not certain, they would make the same choice a thousand times over without seeking counsel or even listening to it when offered.

His idiot was the latter

Some idiots were happy when they shouldn't have been, chasing after happiness regardless of morality, ignorant to the people they hurt or lives they ruined. Other idiots were miserable, completely and totally unhappy with their life as they justified their unhappiness as necessary because they believed they did not have the right to be happy.

His idiot was the latter.

Some idiots surrounded themselves with anyone and everyone they could to guarantee they were never alone, hopeful that sheer numbers would fight off depression. Other idiots let nobody get close to them, adamant that doing so would only complicate things in the long run.

Once more his idiot was the latter…

And it was really starting to test Gyūki's patience.

 _We should just live in this cave._ He snarked haughtily. _If we just live in a cave for the rest of time we'll never have to see another teenager act like an idiot. I wasn't aware that the appropriate response to teenage stupidity was to stab yourself, but now that I know that I'm worried you'll be dead by week's end if we do much as step foot in a public place._

"Don't tempt me." Naruto grunted between each handstand push-ups. "You know I was beginning to miss the sound of your incessant moralizing. Now that I'm hearing it again I'm finding it hard to figure out which part of it I missed."

 _Oh, am I bothering you? I'm sure you have some kunai if you feel the burning desire to impale yourself._ Gyūki groused.

"As much of a pain in my ass as your sermons are, I wouldn't say it's the same as trying to get your team killed."

 _I'm sure that's exactly what she wanted. She probably wanted to kill you both herself, but tried to stop a group of criminals so that you'd feel compelled to help her just to increase her odds of succeeding._

"You know if you're going to be this ridiculous can you just let me work out in peace?" Naruto asked as he launched himself from his handstand and landed on his feet, promptly proceeding to do squats. "You're acting like she did nothing wrong."

 _And you acted like she was deliberately trying to kill you both._ Naruto sighed, obviously thoroughly uninterested in both his work out and this conversation.

"We've talked about this a hundred times before we even came to Remnant, just let it go already." Indeed they had. In Gyūki's opinion it was a philosophical quandary that humans could debate and had debated for centuries. Normally those were the kinds of questions that you sought to answer in immortality, but obviously Naruto disagreed. It was something the two of them had started to bat back and forth a few years ago without either managing to sway the other.

How important is intent in one's actions?

On one hand you could say that in a practical sense intent was irrelevant. It wasn't a position Gyūki held, but it was one he had heard many times. If somebody accidentally ran someone over with a truck and killed them or if they did it intentionally the victim died either way. Gyūki was grateful for the small mercy that Naruto didn't hold this belief.

On the other extreme you could say that intent was all that mattered. Another way of thinking that he wasn't fond of, but not quite so much as the prior. All in all this one was much more multifaceted than the other end of the spectrum, but Gyūki found that the people who believed it were usually hypocrites. When someone bought their friend a gift that said friend did not like humans would often say 'it's the thought that counts'.

That was another thing Gyūki found stupid. The slightest bit of effort to figure out what said person wanted for a gift would have completely solved the situation. The people who preached the extremes of intent often did so in an effort to remove any blame from themselves for the mistakes they made because they hadn't meant to make them. Saying that intent was the most important thing was like philosophical absolution from the fact that they hadn't felt the need to put it any effort to actually get things right.

Placing Naruto and himself on the spectrum was fairly easy; Naruto believed intent mattered less than results to an extent, and Gyūki believed it mattered more to an extent. Neither of their beliefs were black and white, but quite a few things weren't in the world. There was something to be said about people who never took a hard stance on anything, but that was an irrelevant line of thought to their current conversation.

 _You can't force people to do the right thing Naruto boy. Even if that young one does listen to you it won't be because she worked through her problems, but because she is terrified. She can never grow to make the right decisions if you are emotionally manipulating her into making them. The right decision for the wrong reasons is still wrong._

"I'll try to soldier through the pain of knowing I forced her into a mindset that may just help her live long enough to figure things out for herself." Naruto groused. "I'm not sure how I'll manage to bear such immense guilt, but I'll just have to grit my teeth and bear it."

Saying Gyūki was grumpy at this point would have been like saying fire was hot. Still, the ox-octopus knew better than to press the issue having attempted to many times previously. Naruto was not ready to listen to him and that was his right. There may have been something Gyūki could say, some action he could take, some emotional bludgeoning that could browbeat Naruto into agreeing with him. It was possible that it existed, but that didn't matter. Naruto agreeing with him because he felt forced to would not help either of them in the long term.

One must believe their direction to be right. A person who walked down a path because they were told to would soon find themself having fallen off it. Watching his partner's student make such idiotic decisions hurt him, for Gyūki knew they were the wrong ones, but nothing could be done about that. It was his job to watch the idiot make his mistakes and pray that he realized what he was doing sooner rather than later. Forcing Naruto to listen would not serve him or anyone who cared for him.

It would not provide his deceased friend peace.

So as much as it pained him Gyūki dropped the subject. Forcing himself to be content with the fact that… no, now that he thought about it there really wasn't anything going the way he wanted it to. The hachibi forcibly shut down any and all thoughts to avoid riling himself up again.

 _We'll agree to disagree._ He concluded. Naruto clearly had no qualms with that decision, an annoying level of relief spreading across his face. A reaction that once again had Gyūki pacifying his instincts.

Thus Gyūki watched as Naruto went through his general workout routine for the next hour. Compared to what he normally did there were a lot more chakra exercises than normal. He ran laps atop the cave ceiling, did pull-ups using chakra to anchor himself to the cavetop, and other various low level exercises. Naruto's chakra control was well beyond such minor tasks, but it was probably more cathartic than anything.

Other than a scant few jutsu he had chosen to disguise as his semblance he hadn't been able to mold chakra at all. Consciously controlling aura was not something that people seemed to do in this land, aside from through their semblance. To top it off they weren't sure what the effect of using any large jutsu might be. If they used a technique too powerful it might just fry every aura scanner within range, and boy would that be hard to explain.

 _We'll be late for breakfast unless we head back soon._ Gyūki reminded Naruto, receiving grunted affirmation. Naruto finished a pull-up using only a single chakra-enhanced finger as his point of contact before falling from the cave's roof. He gave a quick glance to the seal used for the hiraishin to verify it was still holding out. Clearly content with his workmanship Naruto grabbed his satchel and clipped it back on to his waist before jumping back to his seal in Beacon.

The room was fortuitously still closed because of damages, and even more so hadn't appeared to have any work done on it since they had arrived. Dispelling the seal in the room and verifying that he hadn't disturbed anything had become a standard operating procedure for these kinds of trips and was executed with practiced haste. Opening and closing the door behind him Naruto made his way back to his dorm while carefully avoiding any and all cameras.

"I'm back." Naruto greeted his team as he entered. Everyone was awake and going about their business. Ren appeared to be polishing off some homework, Pyrrha was thoroughly brushing her hair as she oft did before tying it off, and if the sound was any indication Nora was presently in the shower. A minor inconvenience as he'd hoped to wash off the light sweat he had worked up.

"Welcome back," Pyrrha greeted him with a smile, "and thanks for making time for this."

"No prob? It's just breakfast, nothing we haven't done before." Naruto eyed her quizzically. Her face scrunched up a bit but she didn't respond. His whole team had held up for him to get back last night before going to bed just so they could ask him to attend breakfast. Naruto had been out and about doing a variety of tasks for the past few weeks so he hadn't spent time with his team. Training CRDL, exercising, and meditation were his most common time sinks.

It was yet another thing that bothered Gyūki. He knew Naruto was avoiding the kids at the school, even if the boy himself hadn't realized it. By avoiding as much possible stress as he could and filling that time with activities that let off steam Naruto was able to kick his headaches to the curb in the last week. Gyūki didn't want the boy to be in pain, but this wasn't a healthy solution to the problem.

It was the way that he was interacting with people that was exhausting. With the children who would try to be his friends he constantly halted their advances to keep them at an arm's length. When they had tried to push past that arm he had begun to separate himself entirely. He practically goaded the teachers into investigating him by effortlessly defeating anyone he fought against, no matter how strong they were in this world. Incredibly powerful shinobi he was, good at keeping a low profile he was not.

Yet again Gyūki found himself staying quiet. One of the hardest things to do was to watch someone important to you make poor choices, but there was nothing he believed he could do. He had voiced his concerns and they had been summarily dismissed multiple times already. Thus there was nothing the hachibi could do without trying to force change upon him.

And Gyūki refused, such were his beliefs on intent.

"You've got to be kidding me." Naruto groaned as he rifled through his drawers, opening and closing the few he had after a brief glance. Naruto had never been fond of doing his laundry, so neither of them should have been surprised to see multiple replicas of the same black sweats and orange shirt outfit in his hamper. Still… Gyūki could have sworn there weren't that many in there yesterday.

"Is there something wrong?" Ren asked, setting down his pen as he stretched his arms. Evidently it was his version of a reward for finishing his work.

"Just don't have any clean clothes." Naruto sighed. Pyrrha was struggling to stifle a giggle, another thing that seemed bizarre.

"You do have a habit of delaying your laundry. Maybe you should do it a bit earlier next time." Pyrrha advised him, earning an exhausted sigh from her leader.

"Thanks but no thanks. I'll just see if any of these are reusable."

"You don't have a single set of clothes washed?" Ren asked with an arched eyebrow.

"I could have sworn I did," Naruto grumbled, "but clearly I was wrong."

"What about you school uniform?" Pyrrha asked with a sweet smile. "I've never even seen you wear it."

Naruto balked at that. The idea of a sixty-seven year old man wearing a schoolboy uniform had been a bit much to swallow on their first day, and it remained so now.

"I think I'd rather just check to see if any of these are reusable."

"I would advise against that." Ren cautioned gravely. "You are our leader, and thus your appearance reflects on all of us. It would be devastating to our reputation if people were to believe our leader, the strongest of our year, was a slob."

Naruto grumbled some more at that, yet couldn't find any words to refute his teammate. Reaching into his bottom drawer he pulled out a Beacon uniform that still looked like it had been freshly starched and pressed. He held it in his hands like it was radioactive, or worse.

"Pyrrha?" The spartan understood Naruto's meaning and turned around to face the wall as he undressed. Waiting for everyone to change in the bathroom was normally ideal, but sometimes it couldn't be helped between four people and one bathroom to change in.

It didn't take too long for Naruto to get dressed... in relativity to his lifespan. When compared to something like how long it should have taken him to get dressed, well that was a different matter. Nora had emerged from the shower fully clothed in her own school uniform, managed to towel dry her hair, style her hair (which admittedly didn't take long), and begin to nod off (which again, admittedly didn't take long) in the time Naruto was waging the Fifth Shinobi War against his tie.

"Naruto Uzumaki. Strengths: fighting, leading, and making Professor Goodwitch reconsider her teaching career. Weakness: neckties." Nora teased her leader, provoking a poorly restrained giggle from Pyrrha and even a small grin from Ren. Naruto scowled at her balefully, throwing his tie on his bed as he abandoned any hope of winning the war.

"Here, let me help you." Pyrrha offered. Naruto grunted approval as his partner made her way over to his bed to reclaim the abandoned accessory. She undid what had to have been Naruto's attempt at a loop knot before straightening out the tie itself. Draping it around his presently popped collar she adjusted the lengths of each hanging side properly.

"Sorry about this. Not exactly the attire I'd wear back home." Naruto apologized.

"I find it hard to believe you didn't have to attend any formal events." Ren pointed out.

"Yeah, I got dragged into a fair amount of them." Naruto admitted. "They were the type of events that I could attend in combat gear normally."

"Normally?" Pyrrha asked as she pulled the tie through the loop she had created.

"If it was something really high profile they'd assign a few people to dress you."

"You had people to dress you?" Nora asked disbelievingly, her eyes sparkling.

"Eh, not very often." Naruto shrugged as Pyrrha inspected her handiwork. "I thought it was a waste of time initially, but kami did I reconsider that. You'd be amazed how complicated getting dressed can be in some of the clothes they had us wear."

"That is easy to believe considering present circumstances." Ren motioned towards the now pristine necktie. Naruto's normal intimidation factor was minimized by his discomfort about his current attire. Still, he managed to shoot Ren a withering look, though it lacked its normal teeth.

"Thanks Pyr." Naruto said, attempting to adjust his necktie to a more comfortable position before his hand was promptly swatted away.

"Not a problem." Said swatter smiled as she fixed his collar, her cheeks slightly pink.

"Now that the epic Battle of the Necktie in the Valley of Collar is over let's get going! I'm starving!" Nora's stomach made the accompaniment one might expect of such a statement as if entering on cue. The team laughed as they left their dorm to head towards the cafeteria.

Naruto didn't bother to ask if they should invite RWBY as they passed by their room. Gyūki would have liked to believe that was because he felt awkward due to his actions, but the hachibi knew better. Naruto was just giving them space to allow his lesson to set in, like a hot iron you let rest briefly on the flesh to make sure a person was properly branded. Trying to double back for a second heat would only muddy the waters, risking the lesson becoming less focused and memorable.

It wasn't like Naruto enjoyed doing these things, he just preferred it to the alternative.

It turned out that RWBY wouldn't have even been at their dorm if they had stopped to ask them. The lot of them were sitting at their usual table just as you might have expected them to usually do. What made no sense was that RWBY should not _be_ usual. Naruto had given them a system shock big enough to wake the dead, yet they were sitting at their usual table acting like their usual goofy selves.

"Hey Foxy!" Yang shouted, waving both her hands to enthusiastically signal him. Naruto's team began to move towards their lunch table, but Naruto was rooted to the spot.

He didn't want any of them to be miserable, it didn't make him happy to imagine them so, but they _should_ have been miserable. One day wasn't enough to process what had happened and move on! They were kids for kami's sake!

"Are you okay?" Ruby asked, worried concern in her voice. At least that would have made sense, were it not for the fact that the concern appeared directed at the complication of his present immobility instead of what should have been its obvious point of focus.

"Fine…" Naruto mumbled as he took a vacant seat in between Ruby and Yang. The breakfast conversations fell upon him quickly and without trepidation. Everyone at the lunch table seemed to be engaged in conversation with a partner or two. What befuddled him was who he had managed to receive as his partner.

"Do you enjoy reading?" Blake asked him with a pleasant smile on her face. Blake expressed joy seldom enough that what should have been innocuous was in fact anything but.

"It isn't bad," Naruto started cautiously, "but I kind of got sick of it to be honest.

"How do you get sick of reading?" Her voice a mix of confusion and curiosity.

"My godfather was an author. I had to proofread a lot of his work, kind of turned me off books."

"Really? What books did he write?" Genuine excitement carried easily from her voice to his ears.

"Well he started off writing my favorite book…" And so they dove into a conversation about Tales of A Gutsy Ninja. She asked him questions like why he liked the book? What was his favorite part? What else did his godfather write?

The conversation moved towards the embarrassing topic of 'Make Out Paradise' and how Naruto had been the official editor for the latter part of the series. Naruto experienced relief when Blake told him how she believed that all types of authors were worthy of admiration. He was going to call her full of it until she asked if he had a copy she could borrow.

Jiraiya's books had been one of the few things Naruto had taken with him, so that wouldn't be a problem. In order to test his knowledge of the written language of Remnant he had translated the book, so that wasn't a problem. Giving a teenage girl one of Jiraiya's book?

Yeah, that was a problem.

Blake accepted no quarter and was relentless in her badgering. Eventually the begrudging blonde waved the white flag of surrender. He said he'd get her the book by tomorrow as soon as he could find it. She offered to help him look for it tonight if he wasn't sure where it was. A few more minutes of persistent back and forth drilled home the message that she wanted the book tonight, to which he once more relented.

The conversation was so natural, so earnest, and so simple that Naruto had managed to forget very important things. The first one was obvious; how the hell were these girls so normal right now!? The second one should have been just as obvious, considering the setting probably even more so, yet he had forgotten it all the same.

He hadn't gotten any breakfast.

"Excuse me, need to grab some food." Naruto said as he stood up, a sense of irritation beginning to cloud his face. He made it all of ten feet before he had to jerk his head to the left. Fortunately a lifetime of dodging kunai, shuriken, punches, kicks, fire, ice, jagged rocks, lightning, painted animals brought to life, shadows, senbon, smoother and usually larger rocks, swords, hammers, kusarigamas, and the most recent addition of, of course, bullets had made him better than anyone at this school rightfully should have been at dodging things.

So unfortunately for the honeyed toast that sailed through the air it was doomed to miss its mark before it was even thrown at him. Adopting a 'kids will be kids' attitude Naruto kept walking, deciding retaliation would be ridiculous and immature.

Until a metal cup of orange juice was dumped onto his head, the cup falling lifelessly to the ground.

Whoever had thrown it was probably feeling accomplished that they connected, they shouldn't have been. Naruto didn't round on them, no, his movement lacked the speed of a rounding. Naruto turned so slowly that if a horror movie was filmed from his point of view you would have expected a jumpscare to pop out at any moment. Of course, that was not the case as there would obviously be nothing to jump out and scare Naruto.

It was these brats that needed to be afraid.

"Check out this offer meant for a limited time only!" Naruto's words were playful, but his voice had the consistency of a rake being dragged across a steel beam. "Sell whoever did that down the river to hell and spare yourselves the horror of being dragged down with them."

If any of them were intimidated they hid it well. It became apparent that Yang wasn't one of them as she flexed a metal spoon like a catapult and launched some beans straight at him. They rocketed through the air until bouncing harmlessly off of Naruto's tendō. His blue eyes narrowed as they zeroed in on the buxom brawler.

This… this meant war.

* * *

The original plan was trench warfare. A line of tables were thrown onto their sides to create a barricade as they launched food overtop. It was a sound strategy that easily should have won them the food wars.

The foolproof plan was swiftly altered as Nora changed their barricade into a towering fort and declared it Nevermore Castle. She declared herself queen, Ren her vizier and both Pyrrha and Naruto the holy warriors of her kingdom. Naruto might have argued the obvious usurpation of his authority, but Nora's eyes had promised more trouble than it was worth if he so much as tried.

"I spot movement in the enemy lines!" Nora shouted, loud enough for said moving RWBY members to hear.

"The enemy approaches!" Pyrrha echoed, if not more embarrassed than her queen.

"Can I just end this already?" Naruto asked exhaustedly. He had wanted to end this with swift and overpowering tactics, but faced instant rejection by his current liege. Ren advised him that putting up with a large amount of insanity now would be preferable to the month of exasperation Nora would put him through should he decline.

"Nay! We must fight honorably as our ancestors of the noble House of Nevermore have done before us!"

"We are the first members of that house, Nora." Naruto deadpanned.

"Then we must set noble precedent! Do not question your queen!" Naruto sighed and forced himself to remember Ren's advice once more.

"What are your orders… my queen?" Naruto added the last bit after receiving a look that promised he'd be shackled to a pillory otherwise.

"Holy knights of the Eternal Kingdom of Nevermore, protect our lands from the invasion of the wicked!" Naruto sighed as he resigned himself to obeying his self-appointed monarch, musing that really all monarchies generally started with self-appointment.

"All right Pyr, you ready?" Naruto asked, stretching his arms above his head as he prepared to kick some ass.

"Just the two of us against RWBY…" Pyrrha's voice cut out as a tiny grin took its place, a bit vindictive in nature.

"Yeah I know," Naruto chuckled as he scanned the room for his final preparations, "it really just isn't fair-"

"For them." Pyrrha finished, her grin more pronounced. Naruto lips tugged upwards unconsciously as he set into his stance.

"Yeah, for them."

Yang launched herself forward with a somersault as she slammed her fists into two full sized turkeys, turning them into impromptu gauntlets. Naruto decided to take her on head to head as he smashed his hands through two watermelons to match her. The two charged each other with two devastating right hooks. The resulting force shattered the melon on Naruto's hand whereas the meat of Yang's turkey distributed the shock much better.

Using the watermelon bursting in Yang's eyes as a smokescreen Naruto stepped into her space and brought his left hand backwards, creating a small travel distance to bop her on the forehead. There wasn't any good way to get power behind his hit, but he wasn't aiming for that. The small force on her head destabilized Yang, putting her on the back foot. Naruto chambered his melon hand fully this time, ready to knock Yang straight into the ground.

When he tried he found his left arm was being restrained, by a sausage link no less! When he looked to see what had happened Blake nodded past him. His realization was too slow in the making, however. A giant impact straight to his face had him flying through the cafeteria, crashing into the counter where food was served.

"Goddamn that felt good!" Yang pumped her fist as Naruto stared in agitation, his body in sprawled out across the floor.

 _Alright. That's enough of that._ Naruto's eyes were afire. It never mattered how old he got, he didn't like losing. Grabbing the counter he pulled himself up and looked for a new weapon over the counter into the kitchen. Something quickly caught his eye as the optimal food fight weapon, although a bit medieval. Using tendō he claimed his new weapon; a giant leg of meat with a bone handle to wield. His new weapon was taller than he was and just as wide.

Sparing a sideways glance he saw Pyrrha wielding a loaf of bread as a sword and a breadbasket as her shield against Weiss with a giant swordfish. Ruby was speeding around her while throwing any piece of fruit she could find to try and connect on his partner. Pyrrha was holding her own as she continued to defend herself absolutely while also wearing down Weiss' defenses. Assessing that she would be fine for now he turned back to his own problems.

"Round two." Naruto proclaimed, the two girls bracing for his assault. A singular leap covered thirty feet as he rushed them down. A sideways slash forced Blake into the air, leaving his meated weapon out of position for Yang's follow up strike.

Conventional weapons wisdom would lead you to believe that the best thing to do after missing a strike would be to set back to your stance and steady your balance. When it came to weapons too large or unruly that didn't work when fighting multiple opponents. Utilizing the momentum his large swing created Naruto let his feet rotate on the ground as the meat swung full circle like a whirlwind. Blake tried to interrupt him once more with her sausage links, but this time Naruto was ready. Catching them in the air with his right hand as he held onto his meaty weapon with the other he pulled Blake out of the air and batted Yang straight into her.

The two of them collided into a wall where they comically slid down until they fell onto the ground. Naruto couldn't help but whistle happily impressed with himself.

"Now _that_ felt good." Naruto retorted to an incredibly irate Yang.

"Oh we haven't even gotten started yet." Yang seethed, Blake giving a sharp nod of agreement as her eyes narrowed in determination.

"What you do matters not, mortal." Naruto orated as he held his oversized drumstick like a blessed sword. "Now that I have Sameathada nothing can stop m-"

It quickly became apparent that some sort of cosmic force was acting against Naruto as he found himself barreled over once more, this time by his partner. The two of them skidded across the floor until they connected with one of the few remaining tables with a loud crash. He could feel that his partner was sticky with ketchup and fruit juices as their clothes stuck lightly together.

"Really?" Naruto asked teasingly. "Hard to believe you lost to two people who'd still be shorter than me stacked ontop of each other."

It was hard to tell who his hyperbole agitated more; His partner agitated at losing, the diminutive heiress, or the puny prodigy.

"It was a two on one and they are both quite skilled."

"I will have you know that I am a perfectly normal height."

"I'm not short! I'm still growing! I need to drink more milk…"

The three barraged him all at once. Near a lifetime of dealing with Gyūki and Kurama had made him more than proficient at dealing with that, though.

"You need to train more," he said pointing at a positively irate Pyrrha, "you're barely tall enough for an amusement park even with four inch heels," Weiss' fingers flexed open and closed as if she wanted to strangle him… most likely because she did, "and all the milk in the world wouldn't help you grow bean-sprout." Ruby looked like a puppy that had just been punted for a field goal.

 _You think you'd know better by now…_ Gyūki sighed disparagingly.

 _What are you going on about now?_ Naruto groused.

 _You and women, I just don't even know what to do._

And he was right. Pyrrha looked at him with mutiny in her normally docile eyes. That put Naruto in the middle of five women would soon be gunning for him. A position that may have been valuable enough to go up for auction, but the context wasn't quite there for that.

Turned out it was also going to be six women.

"The Holy Knight Uzumaki is a traitor! I declare him an enemy of womankind, thus he is an enemy of the One True Holy Kingdom of Nevermore!" Their kingdom's name just kept getting longer.

"I am sorry for this, but I believe the grudge you will hold for turning on you will be lesser than Nor- my queen's would be for disobedience."

Six women and one man, actually.

Naruto stood up, grabbing Pyrrha by the scruff of her outfit as he did so. With a gentle toss he threw her onto her feet into the semicircle of what were now entirely enemy combatants. Surrounded by enemies, not an ally in sight, only his trusty weapon Sameathada by his side? Hell, this was shaping up to be a good day.

"Get ready, this is going to be a massacre." Naruto growled as he hefted the giant leg of meat onto his shoulder.

The seven of them fanned out into a full encirclement, jumping on the tables behind him in order to set it up. Naruto stood and waited for their first move, and he didn't have to wait for long. Immediately they sent Nora, Yang, and Pyrrha to press the attack with a watermelon on a stick, the dreaded turkey gauntlets, and an oversized baguette. Naruto used his weapon to push himself off the ground as they surrounded him, propelling himself into a handstand off his giant meated weapon.

The artillery was next, clearly expecting the melee force to set him up for an aerial maneuver. Glyph powered cannons shot baked beans straight at him. Blake and Ren jumped to flank him as they shot double barreled ketchup at him. Ruby was making use of her semblance to throw anything and everything food related at him as fast as her little hands would allow it. It didn't leave him any space to maneuver, no way to dodge. So obviously, he didn't.

An invisible barrier stopped any and all projectiles before hurtling it backwards. Clearly the united front was prepared for this; all of them were hidden behind trays, tables, or some other forms of safe cover. The three designated melee fighters had gone with the tray option, and now that his push had ended sought to bring the fight straight to him as the three of them swung their weapons straight at him.

 _Not good enough!_ Naruto thought to himself. There was a space between Yang and Pyrrha that was just large enough to dodge through if he took it that instant. Lowering his head and dashing forward he moved to shoot through the vulnerability between the two fighters before he could meet a food-filled doom. The one thing Naruto didn't account for was something he had never needed to account for. Something his sixty-seven years of experience had not given him the opportunity to experience.

And that was fighting while wearing a tie.

Yang lunged for him as soon as he made his move. What he had thought was the smallest of vulnerabilities in their ironclad encirclement was actually no more than tempting bait to snare the old fox. Their planning bore fruit, Yang victoriously strangling Naruto as he attempted to escape, tightening his necktie in the process.

All at once he was barraged with ketchup, beans, watermelon juice, soda, everything he could think of and some that he couldn't. The ragtag Beacon crew had managed to catch themselves an old fox and were enjoying the spoils of war. Namely, said old fox's humiliation.

"Stupid necktie!" Naruto swore in anger as everyone laughed at him. "Why are these the uniforms for a combat school!? Who the hell fights in a tie!?"

"The Salaryman in Black." Blake answered automatically. Before Naruto could press her for who or what that was his partner dumped a drink over his head.

"He is cleansed, Queen Nora! I implore you to allow my partner and fellow holy knight back into our ranks." Pyrrha said with a cheeky, playful grin. Naruto never would have said such a look was like Pyrrha when he'd met her — he'd figured her for the serious and overly earnest type — but seeing that roguish twinkle in her eye as she teased him felt like it belonged.

"Do not think me bested, my partner. My exile has made me strong, and I will fight to the last!" Naruto gave a battle cry as he charged headfirst with Sameathada trailing behind him.

The fight that ensued was biblical. Food flew through the air in quantities that could blot out the sun. Naruto endeavored to make bodies and fruit fly in equal amounts as he clubbed through their ranks with reckless abandon. Such was his zeal that he didn't even use his semblance to block the foodstuff assault of his and Ruby's teams. That may have had something to do with how filthy he was making it superfluous, though.

The war waged on as Naruto began to grin. For that brilliant moment he forgot everything about the docks and what happened afterward, he forgot about his responsibilities, he forgot about the fact that he wasn't a kid anymore… he just had stupid and irresponsible fun.

Until Glynda showed up. The look she gave them sent shivers down each and every one of their spines. When compared to that look, their food fight looked positively tame.

* * *

In this world you could never do everything by yourself. One could try, and oh she had, but there was simply too much to be done to do it alone. To accomplish anything of import you needed to fill your side of the board with pieces. Every piece she used had its part to play on her board.

Adam was like a rook; she sent him anywhere she needed to apply straight forward brute force. When she went through such pains to acquire him for her game she had hoped a terrorist would have been a bit more utile in espionage. It had turned out that he behaved much more like a blunt instrument, simple yet deadly. Fortuitously his organization and their surprising lack of talent in matters more subtle were compensated for by her two aides.

Mercury and Emerald were her bishops. Their usefulness was multifaceted, but they lacked the raw oppressiveness that Adam possessed. She used them to probe her opponent's defenses and, if necessary, strike diagonally past any strong frontline defense. The two were loyal to her without the slightest shred of doubt. Unfortunately she could be equally certain of just how high maintenance they were if she need use them.

Her pawns numbered many, but for this specific board she relied heavily on Adam's associates to fill that role. Whereas she may have once been illusioned that the White Fang might have been too skilled to be called simple pawns, she was now disillusioned to the point that she oft wondered how they even managed to move straight to hen instructed.

But today was not about her rook or her bishops, it was not even about her pawns. Today was about her knights; the pieces she used to dive past enemy lines and plunder their resources before beating a hasty retreat to her side of the board. It appeared her thieving knights hadn't been able to move as freely as she had anticipated.

When she perused the paper on the previous day she had expected to read a front page story about the theft of a massive Schnee Dust Company shipment. Little had she expected that it would instead be about a large White Fang bust, by a group of Beacon students no less. This lead to a much undesired alteration of her schedule.

"Tell me dear Roman, why is it that I find myself needing to explain to our associate why instead of a shipment of SDC dust being gained we have instead managed to get a few dozen of his soldiers lost."

"First off, if you'd seen them fight you'd know calling them soldiers is nothing short of false advertisement on his part." Roman defended himself irritatedly, lighting up a cigar as his already poor mood fouled.

"And secondly I ran into the most obnoxious, rage-inducing, smug son of a bitch I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. And of course — because Lady Luck wouldn't have it any other way — he is also the strongest son of a bitch I've ever had the displeasure of fighting too."

Roman was working at his cigar with vigor enough to produce smoke in quantities better suited for a chimney than a human's mouth. Neo's only corroboration of his story was the look of murder that blazed in her eyes, but it _was_ sufficient at doing so.

"Your excuse for your failure is that a few first year Beacon student was enough to overwhelm all of you?"

Roman snarled as he threw his barely smoked cigar onto the ground and smashed it beneath his boot. He clearly needed something to take his frustration out on.

"I didn't lose to a merry band of snot-nosed brats! One guy wiped us out on a goddamn whim. Comparing that kid to a first year Beacon student is like trying to measure up a tiger with a house cat."

"These excuses fail to be help your case. I do not tolerate failure, Roman."

"And I'm not the biggest fan of it myself. This wasn't a _'teehee I'm going to toy with the little Beacon kids… oh no I played around too much and botched the job!'_ moment. That brat could have killed me, but he didn't, thank fuck for that."

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Neo shiver. The petite girl lived to fight, it was her greatest joy. Fighting huntsmen in training should have been a treat she salivated to sink her teeth into, instead she looked like a wounded animal.

"Remember who you are speaking to, Roman. We are joined together by no more than mutual benefit, I would advise you don't forget that. Losing to a student makes me wonder what game you're playing."

"Well tough shit because I'm not playing any games. He dealt with Neo and I while taking us about as seriously as an academy spar. He saw her semblance one time and more or less figured it out, which was painful in more ways than one." Roman's thought was accented by the Neo's gnashing teeth as she stabbed a knife into the wooden crate she was using as a chair. "We had to ditch Neo's parasol just to make it out of there." The small girl looked like she wanted to murder someone. It wasn't difficult to guess who. "And to top it all off you two show up! I have to wonder if I kicked puppies for fun in a past life."

"I don't think you've done enough in all your lives to deserve the good fortune that is myself." Mercury said as he strode confidently up towards the two of them.

"I don't think anyone has done enough shit to deserve dealing with you." Emerald rolled her eyes at her reluctant partner's usual narcissism.

"It is hard to imagine anybody deserving me." Emerald and Mercury continued to bicker, but she paid them no mind. Processing the information and producing a plan took infinite priority over her aide's petty squabbles.

Roman denied what the paper had reported, an easily foreseeable event that she had, of course, expected. What she had not expected was the exact way in which he altered the story. Instead of losing to a group of Beacon students he claimed to have lost to only one. Although embarrassing, huntsmen in training were not unskilled to the point where it would have been unfeasible for Roman to have lost. Losing to a singular huntsmen in training was ridiculous. It was that very absurdity that made her believe Roman. If the man was going to lie he could have done much better than that.

That posed a problem, for it implied there was not only a student at Beacon capable of handling both Neo and Roman, but someone who could do it with ease. The number of full fledged huntsmen who could deal with the two of them was already a small pool, narrowing that down to huntsmen that could do so with ease reduced that already low number to less than a handful. The papers hadn't released the names or photos of any of the involved students, but anyone wielding enough power to take her knights had been on her radar for months.

"Do you know anything about the boy?" She asked. The question almost visibly raised Roman's blood pressure.

"Kid told me his name was Naruto, didn't give his last name. He's a spiky blonde brat, six foot nothing, and has some sort of animal companion that has a penchant for eviscerating people. No idea where he came from, no criminal records, no normal records, and no off-the-record records. I tapped every possible source worth tapping and then some, still nothing. There's no way he is some frontier town hick with skills like that, so either he just sprung into existence recently-"

"Or he never existed in the first place." She finished for him. "Infiltrating Beacon for any purpose is no easy task. What purpose would he have in doing so?"

"I don't even know why the hell or how the hell you three are doing it. Could be the same reason that you're interested in the place, but I wouldn't put a single lien on it."

"Because?"

"Brat's already a celebrity over there. I couldn't find jack about the kid before Beacon, but since Beacon he's basically a classroom legend. Allegedly had two semblances; first one is some sort of psychic semblance like Goodwitch, not too sure about its limitations but I can tell you it's got a mean kick. No idea what his supposed second semblance is, but the rumor mill is pretty adamant it exists. Apparently he took little miss invincible and obliterated her in a sparring class as well."

"Kid kicked the Mistralean Champion's ass?" Mercury asked, his interest in the conversation surpassing his interest in screwing with Emerald.

"Pyrrha something or other." Emerald said.

"Pyrrha Nikos." She clarified. "You're certain of this information?"

"Believe me when I say that this brat has been pretty top priority around here. Neo had to abandon her weapon when we fled, so we're trying to parse together as much information as we can on the son of a bitch. She thinks he's the type to keep a trophy from a battle so we're prepping to steal it back."

"Steal it? That is all?"

"I've learned to trust my instincts over the years. They were practically screaming at me the entire time I was around that kid to get the hell out as soon as possible as quickly as I could. I ignored those instincts once and got my ass bit. I'm not in the mood to tempt fate again where he is concerned."

It was a lot of information to process, but she smiled knowingly and confidently as she swiftly did so. Pyrrha Nikos and the mystery behind her semblance had been one of the first things she had wished to determine upon entering Beacon. Pyrrha was strong, likely a candidate for the very power she sought for that very reason. Although handling the mistralian prize fighter was not an obstacle to her plans someone head and shoulders above her could be.

Roman was scared of this Naruto person. He had been incredibly bold with her today, saying he would not tempt fate in such a way that implied she could not compel him to. Roman was much less frightened of her than she had ever seen before. The human mind only had so much capacity for fear, it was possible this Naruto had simply overloaded the fear she'd instilled in the past.

 _Which means I should renew it presently._

"Roman, rest assured I will handle this problem." She stroked his cheek gently, the warmth of her hand gentle on his face…. before her hand began to burn hot as fire. "But I will warn you against defiance in the future. If my plan necessitates you facing him then face him you shall."

Roman's aura crackled furiously beneath her hand as the blistering heat permeated through it regardless. Roman was in pain, that she knew for a fact, and his eyes grew docile as she held his face in her hand.

"Fine." He said, prompting the slow removal of her hand from his face. "That kid could kill me if he wanted to, but I don't think he does."

"Whereas I _will_ kill if you don't play your part."

"Shockingly I'm aware of that fact. If I have to weigh definite death against probable death— which apparently I do — then the choice isn't hard."

And that was what she loved about her knights. They were so easily influenced. She could control Roman through fear, and through Roman she gained access to both Neo and his connections. Simple motivations were easily manipulated, and to such great effect at that.

"On that charming note," Roman's words were spoken harshly, "If I'm right on my read of the kid he's pretty battlecrazed. Give him a big enough challenge and I don't think he's the type to hold his cards if it means losing."

"So I press him hard enough and he shows us the big guns, piece of cake." Mercury shrugged with relaxed confidence. Roman's barked laughter was sharp and derisive.

"Kid, Neo and I could truss you up like a turkey, throw you into the harbor and still have time to complete a heist-"

"Please?" Emerald asked, enamored by the very idea.

"So the idea that you'd push the kid is a joke, and a bad one at that. If someone is going to push him it sure as hell ain't you." Mercury glowered at him, but her poignant stare was enough to make him bite his tongue.

It appeared this duty would fall to her. Just one more thing to do, she supposed. From that point she'd have to find appropriate resources to allocate towards dealing with him. Adam, perhaps.

"The three of us will deal with that by our own discretion, thank you Roman." Roman grunted agitatedly to show what he thought of her appreciation. "The dust you have gathered will be sufficient for our plans. Feel free to amuse yourselves until I have need of your services again."

"Yeah, real goddamn amused right now." Roman groused as he turned to leave, Neo lithely jumping off the crate she'd been using as a seat to follow after him. "I don't know what you're planning, Cinder. At this point, I don't even care enough to ask. Just do us all a favor and make sure it's good enough that we don't die in the process."

Cinder hummed in acknowledgement, not that Roman stayed behind to hear it. She did need him alive, at least up to a certain point. Even saying that was a stretch, actually. Her current iteration of the plan required him alive for now, but she'd find a way to compensate should he pass. Roman was a useful knight, but losing a piece did not mean you had lost the entire board. Similarly, she was sure that Ozpin gaining this Naruto was not enough to win the entire board either. One piece was lost, another gained, it was like a dance.

It was the game she played.

* * *

"I can't believe we have no detentions." Weiss was flabbergasted.

"I can't believe we have no consequences… of any kind?" Blake was similarly abashed.

"I can't believe we're not dead." The two sisters said in tandem.

"It is a surprising outcome to be sure." Ren agreed.

"Professor Goodwitch scares me, she needs to get la-" Nora was cut off by her partner's hand quickly covering her mouth.

"Wasn't the most mad I've made a teacher. Poor Iruka Sensei…" Naruto laughed at memories of a childhood that didn't seem quite so far off after the events of the day. The group was chatting animatedly, basking in the afterglow of a day spent in utter ridiculousness.

He'd remembered how impossible it was that RWBY all just seemed to have collectively moved on from the event after the dock during the tenth minute of Glynda's lecture. Naruto wasn't really sure what to make of it even now. He'd probably need to talk to Blake soon, possibly after they made it to their dorms.

"Naruto?" Blake and her entire team stopped as she addressed him, which then resulted in the rest of NNVR stopping as well. A clear divide was made between the two teams.

"Yeah?"

"I just… I wanted to let you know that you were right. I'm sorry about what I did and I promise nothing like it will ever happen again." Blake bowed her head and averted her eyes.

 _Well that's one hell of an about-face._ Naruto mused to himself, a sentiment that even Gyūki agreed with.

"You didn't sound particularly sorry at the time."

"I know," Blake winced, "I didn't think it was right to turn my back on a crime, but more than that I just hated seeing what the White Fang had become. I just… I wanted to believe they were just misguided. I thought if I talked to them they might see the light and maybe even think of throwing down their arms."

"A group of terrorists throwing down their arms after being talked to?" Naruto asked with an arched brow. Sure, that was pretty hypocritical of him considering his past with Nagato, but they didn't know that!

"I know it was stupid. I know I'm the only one idiotic enough to even try something like that," Naruto flinched, "but I just thought that I had to try to save them. I didn't think of the potential costs my actions could have. I'm-"

"Ok, ok." Naruto stopped her. "I never intended to make you beg. Don't do it or anything like it again and we won't have any issues."

"Deal." Blake said, the picture of contentedness. He wasn't looking at them, but every single person in that hallway wore the exact same smile.

Naruto didn't understand what had happened. He had thought this would take longer, be more difficult, take more pain, more something at least. He couldn't deny that he was happy with the outcome. By the by it was one less thing for him to worry about on a long list of troubles. That was something he was happy to have lucked into.

Little did he know that was exactly the point.

* * *

 ** _Holy god, did I make RWBY do something useful? Jokes aside it is time for the iconic color team to start turning their dysfunction around in this fic. Weiss will be used for more than just an antagonist, huzzah!_**

 ** _For now, please enjoy this omake. Unlike the previous one's before it, this one actually happened._**

 **Omake**

"Not a chance in hell." Naruto adamantly refused. Shikamaru glared at him, exasperated and wondering how what should have been thirty seconds of relaying a message had become an hour of arguing.

"You've got to do something to improve your image. I know it's a pain, but they are disparaging you both regularly and effectively."

"So you've told me. Still not happening."

"Just learn to play the damn thing you pain in the ass! You can make like eight hundred shadow clones for kami's sake!" Shikamaru grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I don't work in a brothel, I'm not eighty, and I'm not a woman. Pretty sure that's enough of a reason to avoid it as is."

"Just play the damn shamisen!"

"No!" Naruto growled.

They'd been going back and forth on this over and over again. Naruto was being called before the five kage to give a speech about the benefits of shinobi academies as well as why it was important that applicants entered at a young age. The kazekage, mizukage, and new raikage had been on a warpath to make becoming a shinobi as unappealing as possible. Outwardly they declared their undying support for shinobi and what they did for their nation, but in reality they were making the position as unappealing as possible.

Budget cuts, increased police forces (who were becoming more and more well compensated), no longer accepting missions, and other equally tiresome plans made being shinobi in those villages a chore at best. Being the miracle child of their generation, being immortal, and being able to blow up the entire world if he decided he didn't like it had given Naruto the privilege to try and appeal his case to the kage.

Something that did not require him to play the shamisen, as Naruto so continually pointed out.

"Naruto, they think you're an uncultured, idiotic philistine who spends his time sitting in a cave talking to animals." Shikamaru groaned. "And yes, I'm aware that is exactly what you are. The problem is that so do they and they're convincing every rich and influential person who has any sway of that as well. Them thinking you're a country bumpkin isn't helping your case, OUR case."

"So in order to prove I'm not a bumpkin, I have to prove I'm a brothel employee?"

"People do play the shamisen at places other than brothels, you know!? Weddings, street performers, rakugo shows, and most important to this situation — **events where you have to impress old people!** "

"Ain't happening Shikamaru. I'm not a music playing guy, I'm not interested in becoming a music player, and I'm especially not interested in playing the shamisen." Shikamaru could do nothing but sigh for the umpteenth time as he shook his head.

"You'll learn the shamisen, you'll learn to like it, and I think you'll even come to think of home when you play it. Give it a chance? Trust me, it is better than the alternative."

"There is absolutely nothing you can do to make me play the shamisen." Yet another sigh broke through Shikamaru's lips.

"I tried, man. I tried to save you. Remember that." Shikamaru knocked on the closed door they had entered the room from. Naruto looked at him in confusion as he did so.

The door gave way, revealing a pink haired woman who looked no older than her early thirties, adorned in a red outfit with a purple diamond on her forehead. She was, in fact, older than she looked. A fact that everyone in the room knew abundantly well. Especially the man who had been, and technically still was, her squadmate.

" **NAAAAARUUUUUUUTOOOOO!** " Sakura bellowed at him. Thirty minutes later there were hundreds upon hundreds of battered and bruised blondes plucking enthusiastically away at their stringed instruments.

Naruto didn't know it at the time, but Shikamaru was right. He learned to love the shamisen. He would often play it when he missed his home and the friends who made his life worth living.


	21. Bared Fangs

_**Greeting and salutations! Welcome to the shortest chapter of OFNT in quite some time. What can I say? Sometimes you just have an awkward amount of content. Next chapter is going to be a doozy though, you have my word. Not too much on the docket for the AN today, but some pretty cool stuff to be sure.**_

 ** _First and foremost Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and that means an obligatory Valentine's one-shot must be written! A poll is being held on my Pa+reon (search kamorge0) for which lovely lady the one-shot will be about. I will be writing it on the thirteenth and posting it on the fourteenth, so if you want to vote you'll need to get in soon._**

 _ **Secondly I got my first person pointing out the rather obvious 'plot hole' about Naruto in this story. Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't get this earlier. "Why didn't Naruto just use shadow clones+transformation to learn things when he came to Remnant?" I can assure you it is not a plot hole, but was intentionally done as such. Since the answer to that question of 'why' is pretty plot central I won't be answering it at this time. The basic answer is fairly inferrable if you think like a paranoid, but a single shadow clone getting clocked a bit too hard could potentially dispel. You could make the argument that Naruto would never let that happen (I don't know how you could considering he basically commits shadow clone genocide in the show) but understand that no risksmall risk.**_

 _ **With that being said let's get to it! I present to you Chapter 20 of An Old Fox's New Trick. See you guys next time.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 20**

 **Bared Fangs**

Discipline. That was the sole word by which James Ironwood defined himself. Any insufficiency, any lack of motivation, any weakness, it didn't matter, anything could be overcome with discipline. He raised both the Atlesian military and academy students on that core ideal. His position as both headmaster of the Atlesian academy and general in the Atlesian military were results he had forcibly wrenched into his grasp due in no small part to his belief in discipline as the highest virtue. At that point in time Ozpin should have been overjoyed that James possessed such discipline.

It was the only thing preventing him from strangling the Beacon headmaster.

"You. Haven't. Investigated. Him?" Ironwood's speech resembled a gear catching every time it attempted to turn.

"Now James, I didn't say that." Ozpin tutted at the Atlesian, causing a vein in Ironwood's forehead to bulge dangerously. The topic of discussion was obviously Naruto Uzumaki.

When they reunited after what had been some time apart they had exchanged the expected hellos and pleasantries. Ozpin had invited him back to his office for coffee, they chatted about the festival, they even reminicised a small amount. The problems arise when James moved to the smaller of the two large issues that needed to be addressed.

Naruto Uzumaki had blown up seemingly overnight in Vale. His rise to fame was such a phenomenon that he'd found out about it from Penny of all people. Apparently the boy was unfathomably strong, possessing aura that put all known measurements not just to shame, but buried them in the dirt without courtesy of a funeral. The aura sensor that was used to detect that was supposed to have been an academic project done primarily for the means of flaunting Atlas technology!

Videos of his spar against Ms. Nikos had circulated on media sharing websites of all kinds. The mechanics of the fight weren't even impressive! The boy showed an above average grasp of grappling and joint manipulation, but there wasn't much else to speak of in the realms of skill. Ms. Nikos had actually been the more impressive of the two, utilizing her shield and weapon to pin her opponent down and force him into a bad situation. So why was it popular?

Because a fighting prodigy renowned for both her fighting acumen and power had her aura mauled down in two blows by someone nobody had ever heard of.

By nobody, James truly meant nobody. He had diverted Atlesian spies to investigate Uzumaki in the past few days for god's sake! Thoroughly frustrated that his top handpicked men could not find a single thing about Uzumaki, Ironwood decided he would just ask Ozpin what he knew and if he considered the boy a threat. His answer had not been useful to say the least.

Ozpin did **not** say that he hadn't investigated Uzumaki, what he'd said was-

"You attempted to investigate him, discovered nothing, and gave up?" Ironwood growled, thanking his precious discipline more and more each passing second.

"I'm beginning to worry that you may be hard of hearing, James. I said that I investigated him rather fruitlessly until I decided there was no point in doing so any further. The young man has proven to be a valuable huntsmen, as displayed by his incredibly success at the docks, as well as an incredible resource for his peers about the dangers and realistic of working in the field."

"So you didn't give up, you decided to stop trying?"

"Exactly so."

"Damn your semantics Oz!" Ironwood steamed. "Uzumaki could be dangerous!"

"James, do try and have a little faith in me." Ozpin requested. It didn't do much to smooth the issue over with Ironwood, but what little it did had the Atlesian breathing deep, slowly relaxing himself.

"I'm absolutely sure he's dangerous." Ozpin smiled a bit wickedly into his cup of coffee. Ironwood un-relaxed immediately. "To be blunt, it's because he's so dangerous that I decided to stop investigating."

"You? Scared of a child?" Ironwood had seen the boy fight in that video. He was strong, but nowhere near that impressive. Vast aura was impressive, but it could only aid you so much in fights.

"Not in the sense that you might think." Ozpin clarified while managing to explain nothing. A single glare from Ironwood prompted him to continue. "I am not concerned about the possibility that Mr. Uzumaki entered Beacon with the intent to harm anyone. I am similarly nonplussed about knowing nothing about his background."

"That's a bold lie, Oz. You hate being in the dark." Ozpin chuckled at that.

"I suppose I misspoke. I'm not content with the secrets he is keeping, but I will choose to remain ignorant if it provides Mr. Uzumaki even the slightest modicum of gratitude towards me."

Quietness took hold of the air as Ironwood allowed that remark to stew. Ozpin had always been an expert at manipulating people. To hear that he had some sort of grand design for one of his students did not come as a shock to James. What resonated so poorly was the idea that Ozpin would remain willfully ignorant for nothing other than the smallest sense of gratitude.

"For the time being I will trust you on this matter as we have more pressing matters to discuss. Have you considered my proposal about Ms. Ni-"

"No, James. We will continue the previous conversation." Ozpin interrupted him, a foreboding glint in his eyes. "Let me be clear; You are completely and irrevocably forbidden from doing anything that has even the most minute of chances of pushing Mr. Uzumaki away from us. I do not want him investigated, I do not want him interrogated, and if you dare send someone to spy on him you best pray Mr. Uzumaki does not notice. If I am wrong he is a priority on equal standing with our highest."

"You mean if you're right?" Ironwood chuckled, Ozpin merely grimaced.

"No, I spoke correctly. If I'm right that young man will not be a piece to add to the board, but will become the very game itself. If I'm right _she_ might forget about the maidens and the relics entirely in order to win him should he fall into the purview of her sight. I want to be wrong, I pray that I'm wrong, I'm kept up at night hoping that I am wrong…"

"But you don't believe you're wrong." James finished.

"I do not." Ozpin concurred, his entire person possessing the mirth of a funeral dirge. "Ms. Nikos was not bested, she was unequivocably annihilated. A feat which Mr. Uzumaki did not need either of his two semblances to achieve. The huntress we expected to be our strongest candidate, a champion in arena combat, our first and foremost candidate for what lies beneath this school was unable to put up a fight despite the fact that her opponent held back, most likely considerably at that."

"Plenty of huntsmen fight without their semblance." Ironwood waved his mentor off, the tension in the air mounting as if to spite his attempt at diffusing it.

"Glynda thought he was a semblance fighter when he came to this school, as did most students. Aside from usage of basic tools he fought entirely with his semblance. He faced Ms. Nikos in hand-to-hand because Glynda forbade him from using his semblance. She had hoped a fight against such a prodigious fighter without the use of his semblance would force him into a loss, thus making him reconsider the low bar we assumed he had set for his melee combat."

"Though it is clear he is quite strong, you can't say he has much finesse. Attacking her strongest point-"

"Why do you think he did that, James? Hitting exactly where your opponent wants to be hit is the most basic of mistakes a huntsman can make, and he is clearly not a basic huntsman." Ozpin pulled up multiple videos on his monitor all at once. Uzumaki using some type of telekinetic semblance, Uzumaki flying through the air on sand, Uzumaki creating a deathstalker out of sand, and another video of him fighting Ms. Nikos in a practice ring, trouncing her using only his semblance.

"Hmmm…" Ironwood hummed. His fellow headmaster's manner of acting had unnerved him, Ozpin was not one to act so frantically. His old friend had a point — Uzumaki's semblances were clearly overwhelming, not to mention the fact that they were plural. "It is possible that Uzumaki is just physically strong. Nothing in that fight suggested he possessed much beyond that."

"A possibility," Ozpin admitted in a way indicative that he clearly believed it wasn't, "but I believe it to be something different. There's a clear shift between how Mr. Uzumaki approached the beginning of the fight and right before he decided to finish it." Two videos played in tandem showing the start of the fight where Uzumaki was making a mockery of his opponent and right after he tried to defeat Ms. Nikos' sword.

"Uzumaki switches from a combat style prioritizing lightness and using his opponent's power towards a heavier, stronger one."

"True, and just like you to notice that. There is an aspect that I believe to be far more important than than that though." Ozpin restarted both videos, giving Ironwood a chance to watch them again.

"I don't see anything other than my initial analysis." James stated firmly. "He is disrespecting his opponent in the beginning, but decides to take Ms. Nikos seriously after she made a truly impressive series of attacks that forced him into a dangerous situation. I can't say I approve of the way he's treating this spar."

Ozpin couldn't resist a pained chuckle. "I felt much the same when I first watched it. I've watched this fight many, many times over the past week, hoping it would give me some sort of clue. Over the course of those many viewings it did exactly that." Ozpin played with his keyboard, one of the videos filled the screen at the point where Uzumaki was cornered on the ground by Ms. Nikos' shield. "Watch his face."

Uzumaki was stuck on the ground as the blade came towards him. Without use of his semblance the options would be few, and he opted for one of the more theatrical ones — trying to hit the sword off course with the palm of his hand. From Ironwood's perspective, or at least the perspective of whoever recorded this on their scroll, Uzumaki's timing appeared to be a millisecond off. James dismissed the thought as he carefully studied the boy's face.

Uzumaki appeared annoyed at first, but his face suddenly took a turn towards infuriation. From that point the two hits connected on Ms. Nikos' shield and Glynda called the match. Ironwood didn't believe what he saw.

"Is… is he sad?" James asked disbelievingly.

Ozpin smiled glumly. "It does appear that way, doesn't it? He just defeated one of the most promising huntresses in all of Remnant, yet he seems to be unhappy. For whatever reason he decided to take things more seriously, but as you have pointed out he didn't take them too seriously."

"He attacked her shield…" Ironwood breathed, realization dawning on him. "He decided to reveal his true strength against one of the strongest fighters he had access to, but even then the fight was over in the blink of an eye despite him attacking what should have been Ms. Nikos' strongest defense."

"Not indifferent from how a huntsman might fight one handed against a student to level the field." Ozpin concurred. "More than just sad, Mr. Uzumaki looks apologetic. At the end of the fight Glynda said he complimented Ms. Nikos in earnest for a bout well fought."

"Although Ms. Nikos displayed brilliant strategy in her opening gambit it is clear now that Uzumaki had the ability to end the fight whenever he so wished. So why would he consider that a good fight?"

"I believe that is the simplest question I've had to answer about Mr. Uzumaki to date." Ozpin sipped at his coffee that had long since gone cold. "I believe it probable that it was a good fight by his standards."

Ironwood laughter was barked fast and brief, like he didn't enjoy its taste in his mouth. "You were the one trying to convince me he attacked her strongest defenses intentionally because of an overwhelming difference, now you are trying to tell me that Ms. Nikos pressed him?"

"No, no I am not." Ozpin waved the very notion away. "What I believe is that it was the most difficult fight Mr. Uzumaki had experienced in some time."

"That was not a close fight."

"No it was not."

"You think he is hiding more power than that?!"

"I'm almost certain."

"How strong do you think he is?!"

"Honestly," Ozpin sighed as he threw the rest of his coffee back like he was taking a shot, "That is a question that I don't have an answer to."

 _And that is why he scares me._ Ozpin's implication clung thick to the air. James had thought that Uzumaki would be an incredibly anomaly worth studying, yet Ozpin speculated something far more serious. Whichever case it was, there would need to be much more conversation had about it.

 _So much for relaxing after my flight._ James sighed. Sometimes he hated being disciplined. It meant that in situations like these — situations where he wanted nothing more than to go to sleep and do nothing more — he was forced to press on or admit defeat.

"In that case," Ironwood bit the bullet, "what should we do about it?"

* * *

"We play Ursa Major Mauling! A band or ursa majors sweep through to your supply lines, cutting off the rations you needed to continue your siege of Mantle!"

"Well… shit!" The Russel/Cardin pair swore in unison as the Ruby/Yang pair lorded their imminent victory over them. Dove and Weiss were whispering animatedly to each other.

"Actually, we'll play Emergency Air Bombardment." Dove declared as he placed down a card.

"Thus eliminating the ursa and any threat posed to the Vale supply lines with them." Weiss smiled smugly, turning to the Russel/Cardin pair. "Please continue your righteous assault on the kingdom of Mantle, but remember that you owe us." Ruby collapsed into her arms on the table, crocodile tears streaming from her face.

"This is collusion! Rigged game!" Yang complained loudly. Weiss gave a simpering giggle.

"Tsk tsk Yang, all is fair in love and war." Yang joined her sister, banging her hand on the table in bitter defeat.

Meanwhile, a different battle was waging no more than ten feet away. A battle far more intense than the one for the fate of Remnant.

"I'm so glad you could join us today, Velvet." Pyrrha smiled genially.

"Thank you so much! When Naruto invited me I was glad I had some free time. I haven't been able to spend much time with h- everyone recently." Velvet's smile was just as wide.

"It's just been busy for our teams the past few days. We've been hanging out together pretty regularly, so we haven't had much time for anyon-thing else. I'm sorry that we haven't been able to talk much, you know you're always welcome to-"

"I missed you all, but it hasn't been too lonely. I still have my team," Pyrrha beamed in understanding, "and Naruto had been texting me a lot more recently." Pyrrha's beaming expression suddenly appeared much more brittle.

"Oh really?" Pyrrha asked with voice as sweet as honey. "How thoughtful of him…"

"Absolutely! We stayed up so late messaging that I actually fell asleep with my scroll in hand last night. When I woke up I realized what had happened, but he had just sent me a message guessing what happened and wishing me sweet dreams. I was so embarrassed!" Velvet rapped her head lightly with her knuckles as if to say _,_ ' _Teehee! I'm such a clutz!'._

As the two faced each other down with smiles as amiable as could be an even fiercer battle was being waged not five feet from them.

"So before Atlas was formed what was the land known as?" Sky asked his flunky of a pupil.

"Uhhhhhhh…" Sky glared at the usually far superior blonde in complete and total disbelief.

"You've got to be joking."

"Hey! We didn't get out and about much where I came from. Didn't lend itself well to world history, ok!" Naruto complained. Apparently the blonde's grades in Oobleck's class weren't poor somehow. It was a fact that Sky had a hard time believing considering the buffoonery he was having to deal with now. The NNVR leader had explained that he just spent a lot of time on the homework to make sure he got it right. So Sky had taken it upon himself to offer any and all assistance not only because Naruto had done so much for him, but because it furthered their plans.

" _Keep interacting with him whenever possible."_ Yang had told them during their three team meeting. _"Make sure you keep those interactions casual and light. You can train with him, work with him, or just mess around, but don't let anything get too heavy."_

That was her theory in a nutshell. Naruto felt obligated to help them whenever they needed it, so they just had to avoid needing anything that would throw him over the edge. That compulsion of his made their relationships with him so one sided that he felt the need to recharge by ignoring all of them afterwards. Sky had a few gripes with that analysis, chiefly because he didn't seem to avoid CRDL at all, but then again they weren't exactly trying to be his friends.

That wasn't to say they didn't like the guy or anything. It was more like the whole team already considered him some cross between a friend and a mentor as it was, so there wasn't any need to push the envelope. Apparently the other two teams hadn't had the luck theirs' had, though. So on that line Sky decided that giving back with some teaching would be an easy way to make their relationship more mutual. It quickly became apparent that he should have chosen a different adjective to describe the task that was teaching his teacher.

"Mantle! You can't be as strong as you are while having a brain this stupid! I refuse to believe it!"

"Come on man, it takes all sorts."

"Not like this!" Sky hissed, his hardworking and earnest persona completely shattered by the crushing weight of Naruto's ineptitude for history. "Is this some kind of cosmic joke? Did whatever god that exists make your combat stat SS only to decide he needed to balance it out somehow?"

Naruto protested, but Sky unrelentingly laid into him. Nora was asleep at the same table they were, as was Ren. The quietest member of NNVR had joined them when they first started studying for Oobleck's class, but quickly removed himself from the equation as Naruto's failures grew increasingly irksome to Sky.

"Not that I'm letting you out of this," Sky segued, whispering quietly enough so only Naruto could hear, "But are you going to do anything about those two?" He gestured to Velvet and Pyrrha. Naruto regarded him with unadulterated confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I know it's awkward, but you probably shouldn't let them fight like that."

"Fight? They've just been talking about our teams and such, they look pretty happy too. What are you talking about?" Sky wanted to grab one of the question marks that were floating above Naruto's head and bludgeon him with it.

"Not to borrow too heavily from Russel… but holy shit man! Are you really that dense!?" Sky's previous quiet was completely abandoned.

"What the hell man!?"

"Yes." Ren answered at the same time as Naruto, deeming the question important enough to look up from his book. "He really has no idea. It would probably be best if you let him figure it out himself."

Sky facepalmed, proceeding to muss his blue hair in an effort to vent his frustrations. "I get it, I'll leave it at that."

Naruto was not so content to let the matter go as he pressed Sky for what the hell they were talking about. Luckily Sky didn't have to hold out for too long before a distraction saved the day. Another messy haired blonde had entered the library, a bright blue haired companion in tow.

"Hey Blake! 'Sup Naruto?" The blonde greeted them with a roguish grin.

"What do you know? It's the better half of my recent escort mission. The one who actually listens!" Naruto rolled his eyes playfully at Blake. That way of casual teasing about such a serious issue would have surprised Sky if he hadn't been warned in advance.

" _I don't think he wants to be any of our superiors. My partner wants to be normal, but doesn't believe he can, at least I think so. He probably doesn't want to dwell on what happened any more than we do, but will choose to if he thinks it will help in some way. If we show him it is unnecessary I believe he will quickly move on."_

Two for two, Pyrrha had also been correct. They had coordinated a group message to relay information on anything involving what was quickly becoming an operation. Apparently the food fight and apology plan had both moved forward without a hitch. They had said Naruto seemed to be visibly more relaxed and less averse to spending time with their teams. They had been working away at him for a few days now, and so far so good.

"Hey, cut her some slack. Blake was just doing what she thought was right." When Sun spoke the library went from being all hustle and bustle to being so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Every set of eyes homed in on Sun like multiple pairs of death lazers, even the pair belonging to the previously asleep Nora. The instant change in atmosphere would have been noticeable to anyone, and by the way Sun went from defensive to awkward in no time flat he had felt it too.

"I made a mistake, Sun." Blake said slowly, clearly, making it transparent the statement brokered no argument. "It isn't wrong to try and stop crime, but I was unwilling to think about the risks it posed to you and Naruto when I went in by myself. It was selfish, it was dangerous, and you shouldn't defend me for it."

" _We need to change how casually he views violent extremes as a means to solve problems, but I don't think we can do it right now. You don't become so damaged by living an easy life, something breaks you into beliefs like that. His beliefs are probably so ingrained that he is more likely to ignore any argument to the contrary. I don't know if it will work… I've seen it fail before, but if we want any chance of changing his mind he will need to consider us friends. So until that point we cannot — MUST not try and change his beliefs, only minimize their impacts."_

"You really threw us a _monkey_ wrench." Yang regained her composure first, the most self satisfied grin Sky had ever seen stretching across her mouth. "Ahhh, puns. It is good to have you back."

"Nooooooooooo!" Ruby cried, banging her tiny fists on the table in a tantrum. "My vacation, my promised land, my heaven! Why do bad things happen to good people?!"

The RWBY team quickly dove back into animated discussion, forcibly dragging Sun and his attaché down to their table as they introduced themselves. It was like watching a live demonstration of a white blood cell encapsulating a potentially harmful bacteria in order to neutralize it.

"Have you thought at all about the Vytal Festival, Naruto?" Velvet asked as both she and Pyrrha joined them at the table. The change of topic was very much an intentional one. The bunny was somewhat in the know, mainly due to Ren's recommendation. She didn't know what had happened after the docks, but was more or less up to speed on what they were doing. With eleven people assuring her this was to help Naruto she quickly joined the fold. Sky wondered whether or not that was the reason she was able to stomach being around his team, the team that had bullied her.

"That big tournament thing that's coming up? Isn't that a while away?"

"It's more than just a tournament," Pyrrha corrected him, "the whole event is about fostering unity between the four nations and their respective huntsmen academies."

"Lots of events, food stands, and other things get thrown into the mix. Never been to one, but I've heard they're pretty impressive." Sky supplemented.

Naruto shrugged casually. "I haven't put much thought into it past winning the tournament."

Sky couldn't help but notice Velvet's bunny ears twitch. "You mean entering the tournament?" Naruto gave a more played out shrug, his upturned palms accentuating the gesture.

"Entering, winning, same thing. If Nevermore enters the tournament then we'll win it, so I haven't really bothered thinking about it much." He sighed in agitation. "I'd love to fight someone strong, but I'd rather not have all the attention that comes with winning. I've actually been pretty torn about whether or not to enter."

"We gotta enter!" Nora burst into their conversation. "We can't fight if we don't enter!"

"That is, in fact, the trade-off I'm looking at." Naruto chuckled. Velvet's eyes narrowed as she looked at her obviously desired paramour.

"You don't want to enter… because you think you'll win?"

"No no no! Of course not! I love winning." Naruto assured her. Velvet's eyes returned to a normal shape. "I just don't want the attention that comes with it. Being in the spotlight sucks."

"I couldn't agree more."

"It isn't my cup of tea, at least."

"You guys are sticks in the mud!" The majority of NNVR agreed with their leader, the vocal protest from the 'V' of their team going largely ignored.

"Even if you enter you might not win, you know?" Velvet reminded them a bit pointedly. The reactions were mixed, but all along the same line.

Pyrrha didn't outright laugh, but the amusement on her face was so abundant her eyes sparkled with mirth. Nora and Naruto did just outright laugh. Naruto leaned back in his chair and slapped his knee while Nora banged her fist on the table repeatedly, hammering the abundance of humor that statement held into the table before she burst from trying to contain it. Even Ren found the statement laughable, a whole two syllable laugh escaping his lips before he could stop it.

Velvet was not amused.

"To be fair," Ren started to explain, "I don't think that we are the most well balanced team in terms of ability. Knowing our leader I am confident in saying that he could enter the tournament alone and still win."

"I could, but I wouldn't." Naruto agreed with a nod of his head and a mature expression on his face. Velvet looked hopeful — she had no right to be, of course — but she hadn't been on the receiving end of this gag yet. NNVR knew, and were struggling to keep their composure as he started his speech.

"The Vytal Festival is about teamwork and unity! The most important of virtues for both fledgling and veteraned teams alike are the pillars of the event-"

"Which you didn't know until Pyrrha told you like a minute ago." Nora added quietly enough to not interrupt, but loud enough to hear.

"As such, I will demand the best out of my team and myself as we strive to demonstrate our superior teamwork and aptitude to all of the adoring public-"

"We have teamwork? We've done something as a team since initiation?" Pyrrha interjected with a mix of pointedness and playfulness, but was completely ignored by her leader as he forged on.

"So we will work together, forge bonds, and demonstrate the strength that comes from unity for all of Remnant to see-"

"And the punchline is…" Ren started.

"Even though I could just blow everyone off the arena the instant the fight started. It just wouldn't be sporting."

"Here." Ren finished, a small yet satisfied smile tugging at his lips. The team laughed as Naruto bowed, clearly proud of yet another performance.

"I hate you all." Sky grumbled. "I can't even disagree, and it only makes me hate you more. How is having the Invincible Girl and Naruto on a team together fair?!"

"Meh," Naruto shrugged, "I could make any team win, even yours. I'm just that good."

"Nope! You're stuck with us!" Nora latched onto his arm, effectively ensnaring him. If his arm being tugged between her bounties bothered Naruto, he didn't show it.

"Kami help me." Naruto prayed, earning himself a punch in the shoulder from his partner. "We do need to get some practice in. Even if we could just wing it and be fine it would probably make our opponents pretty unhappy. Are you guys alright with a little team practice some time before the tournament starts?"

Sky didn't think there was anything Naruto could have said that made his team happier. Pyrrha looked overjoyed at the thought whereas Nora was a bundle of excitement. Ren looked relieved, but even that was palpable. He looked like a man who had just pondered setting down a heavy and cumbersome weight for the first time.

"I think we could manage that." Ren agreed.

"Our first team training! I've got the work out clothes ready and everything!"

"I think it would be wonderful" Pyrrha beamed radiantly.

"Not to interrupt or anything..." Velvet metaphorically elbowed her way back into the conversation.

 _Now that is an unhappy looking bunny._ Sky intelligently kept that thought to himself.

"But you are first years. Do you really think you'll be able to beat everyone in the tournament? You know the tournament isn't just open to first years, right?"

"Wouldn't matter either way." Naruto answered. Sky understood what Velvet was thinking right now. She probably thought he was being arrogant or childish, naive in some way. She probably thought he had been a big fish from some small pond of a town who had gotten a bit too big for his britches.

He wasn't, and anyone who had ever fought him knew that. Sky wasn't sure how much the other students at Beacon had caught on, but Naruto was not at their level. He'd say Naruto was as strong as the professors if he didn't suspect that would be heavily undercutting his capability. Naruto made his demon racoon into a deathstalker with his sand semblance just to help them train. Their entire team couldn't make a dent on an amalgamation of Naruto's semblance he didn't even bother using in combat normally. Velvet probably thought Naruto's claim to victory was presumptuous, but Sky sure as hell didn't. If the gods came down from the sky and handed Naruto the Mandate of Heaven he'd be more shocked about the prior than the latter.

Velvet was expectedly unenthused by Naruto's attitude and the two banetered back and forth. It didn't have the spite that he'd grown to expect from arguments throughout his life. Then again, nothing at Beacon was really like he'd expected it to be. As his team and RWBY finished their game they too joined the conversation. The whole gathering was raucous and disorganized, even downright silly at times, but there was nowhere he'd rather be.

In their first week at Beacon he thought that his life with CRDL would be like the rest of the life he'd lived up to that point. Sky had been scared, cowardly, and more than happy to go along with Cardin's dickishness as long as it meant that lense wasn't focused on him. He had wanted to avoid being the bullied so much he was willing to pay the cost of becoming the bully. He regretted that way of thinking now.

But that was only possible because Naruto had smashed everything down around him. After abandoning Cardin at Forever Fall he made it impossible for Sky to avoid who he was — Naruto forced that acceptance on him. The NNVR leader didn't stop there, he didn't just break things and run away. When Sky's person was broken, Naruto was there to help him rebuild. It was because of Naruto that he was able to sit around and enjoy spending time with friends and acquaintances he never thought he'd get to have.

He didn't really agree with this whole vendetta on Naruto's way of teaching. Sure, it was rough and ugly, hell it was downright extreme at times, but so was life. That way of teaching was why he didn't feel like a piece of shit every waking moment. That way of teaching was why he was able to finally give his all again. He wasn't doing this to change Naruto, at least not like everyone else.

He just wanted the man to be happy.

As he watched the three (and a half) teams causing way too much noise for any library in existence... Sky had hope. If they kept this up, if they tried their hardest, if they did everything they could then maybe Naruto wouldn't look so damn empty on the inside.

* * *

"Never got the chance to go to a fancy pants school like this. Maybe I'll get the chance to break a few hearts."

"You should give it a shot. Maybe I'll get lucky and one of them will break your neck in the process."

"Awwww Em, you know it's cute how jealous you get, but you're smothering me. I'm just not ready for that kind of commitment yet. It's not you, it's- actually no, it's you."

"Please die, Mercury."

Cinder was oblivious to their squabble. Normally she would have demanded their silence so that she could think, however she was already so lost in thought that such mundanities failed to catch her attention. She was running over every variable, every contingency, anything and everything that would, could or even had the most meager of possibilities of affecting her plans. She had done this more than enough to be certain of every aspect, save one that she'd not had the time to account for.

Naruto Uzumaki wasn't flitting around her mind so much as rampaging wantonly. The man had inspired fear enough in Roman as to produce flippancy in the man. Roman had learned to fear her almost as soon as she had deigned to meet him, yet this Naruto almost undid that work in a singular scuffle. She reminded herself that he was just one variable, one piece, and it calmed her down.

Still, that didn't mean she could afford to be careless. After dealing with Roman she had spent the majority of her time researching the mysterious Beacon freshman. Other than a single video of him fighting the Nikos girl the drought of information was as real as Roman had claimed. No matter who she contacted there was nothing to be found. Her paranoia of unknowns almost drove her to contacting Watts for assistance, but she swallowed the vile impulse as soon as it struck her. This mission was to be her accomplishment, no others would encroach upon it.

The ability to engross herself so deeply in her thoughts turned out to have minor consequences. They had made it into Beacon and were making their way through its halls when a small yet speedy girl barreled into her, bouncing harmlessly to the ground.

"Woah, sorry." The black and red missile apologized stupidly. At the very least Cinder found it to be stupid, annoyed as she was.

"A leader doesn't run in front of their troops shortstack." A blonde male appeared around the same corner as the small girl, an orange scarf draped around his neck.

"What does that even mean?!"

"If your team sees you panic, they are more likely to panic. If you're freaking out about leaving your board game in the library… kami your first mission is going to be a disaster." The blonde sighed as he massaged his brow. "Sorry about that, she excites easy."

"That's not a problem." Cinder replied, not believing her words but not wishing to draw attention to herself. "We all get a little excited from time to time."

The blonde smiled diplomatically. "Thanks for understanding. Sorry for bothering the three of you. Let's go walk and get that board game, Ruby." The blonde held out his hand like he would to a small child. It would have looked more out of place if the girl wasn't both so small and youthful. She declined it and stood on her own, proving his unstated point about her childishness as she blew a raspberry in protest as they began to walk past her.

There was something about the way he moved... She wasn't sure if it was his long and deliberate gait, his statured upright posture, or his slow and measured pace, but the whole procession seemed to be rather odd. It was a posture not dissimilar to her own, a posture of a tried leader.

"I'm sorry," Cinder apologized for nothing in particular, successfully causing the two of them to stop, "We're actually from Haven and were wondering if you might know where our room is." Cinder pulled out a numbered room keycard and showed it to him. She was fully aware of where her room was, but it proved an apt excuse.

"You're a little bit down the hall and a few rooms left." The blonde responded to her, pointing in the direction they'd already been heading.

"Thank you, it's always a challenge finding yourself with so few familiar places." The blonde gave an understanding smile and once again motioned to leave. As he passed she noticed that what she believed to have been an orange scarf was actually an orange fox draped around his shoulders. She noticed that the fox seemed to be eyeing her with an almost human interest.

It appeared the fox's interest made its way to the blonde on which it sat, for he turned around once more. "I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your name."

Cinder did not fail to notice how he did not offer his. "Cinder Fall." She extended a hand in greetings, a hand the blonde then took.

"Uzumaki, Naruto." The blonde identified himself with a grin. Cinder found herself staring at an identical grin from the fox that had laid docile on his shoulders. It was a grin that had a singular, simple intention.

To bare their fangs.


	22. Stoked, Not Sated

_**Greeting and salutations! To answer the question of why I use that as my opener it is because of Roderick from** Might and Magic VI The Mandate Of Heaven **. That man had to save my eradicated party many a time from the Defenders of Varn. I honor him thusly at the beginning of every chapter.**_

 _ **To be honest with you guys this isn't exactly my kind of chapter, so I'm a little disappointed with it. I like to make sure my combat paints a clear image of exactly what is happening so you can see it in your mind, but it can make fights drag out a little long. In almost 200k words I haven't managed to have a really big fight scene, so I figured we were overdue for one. I hope you will be merciful.**_

 _ **To anyone who was wondering where the Valentine's Day chapter was, it is its own story! Check my profile and look for the story Spotlight if you want to read my pa+reon voted oneshot!**_

 _ **I ask anyone who wishes and is able to help support this work on pa+reon. Search kamorge0 on the site and you will find me, or just add /faulkner to the website to find my page directly. I am incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported me so far. I was able to buy some chicken thighs and non-fat greek yogurt to help myself eat healthier with that money along with a few salads! Support my ability to eat food so I can keep cranking out some chapters!**_

 _ **With that being said this AN is concluded. I present to you chapter 21 of An Old Fox's New Trick**_

* * *

 **Chapter 21**

 **Stoked, Not Sated**

Naruto was humming happily. If he wasn't so absorbed in his own thoughts he might have noticed his entire team watching him as he rummaged merrily through his belongings. It was a nonsensical tune that was indicative of his free spirited joy as he carefully placed folded clothes and items into his laundry sack. Verifying that he had crossed all the items off his mental checklist, Naruto then made to move towards the bathroom.

"Is the shower free?" Naruto asked his orange haired teammate.

"Yup!" Nora answered cheerfully. She was normally the last one in due to how late she enjoyed sleeping, but Naruto had taken quite some time collecting items from his stash of belongings. Ren couldn't quite make out what Naruto had been gathering, though the bulging size of of his laundry bag indicated that whatever had been taken was in impressive quantity.

Naruto turned on the shower in the bathroom and the sound of running water promptly filled the air. Due to the fact that their bathroom had fantastic acoustics as well as noise canceling panels built into the walls it was basically the signal for discussion to begin.

"That was odd." Ren stated simply, getting two nods from his female teammates.

"He was holding the bag by the bottom, so I'd think it's pretty heavy." Pyrrha reasoned.

"I don't have a clue! He's our leader and we're finally starting to be an awesome team again! I'm not poking my nose in stuff like that." Nora always seemed to have the strangest wisdom at times. Ren agreed that pressing their noses too deeply into his business wasn't wise. Their leader had finally started to slowly return to their team, possibly in more ways than said leader realized.

He'd admitted that he was strong enough to best an entire team during their time at the library. That act of bragging was what had helped Ren cement his decision not to investigate Naruto, or rather the way in which he said it. Naruto didn't want to lie to them, but he felt that he needed to. At least that had been what Ren had taken away. Naruto knew that Ren had been incredibly wary of him ever since that day he probed Naruto's aura. Now that he had begun to give Naruto some trust and act normally the man was relaxing his guard, whether that was conscious or unconscious.

The second part that helped solidify Ren's decision was the reason he did not want to enter the tournament. Naruto was positive they would win without a shred of doubt, the consequences of which would be increased popularity and the notice of Remnant. Trying to avoid attention either meant that he found being noticed tiresome, or he had some masterplan that required him to retain his anonymity. Considering how absolutely terrible a job Naruto was doing at flying under the radar Ren felt safe in ruling out the latter.

For whatever reason their leader just wanted a quiet life where he wasn't bothered. Ren wasn't sure why Naruto chose to try and get that in a huntsmen academy as opposed to a quiet life in some border town, but neither was it his place to know. People had secrets, as long as Naruto's weren't a danger to the people around him then Naruto would have no problems from him. As misguided as Ren found Naruto's willingness to self-harm he couldn't deny that it was a clear sign that their leader would rather be hurt himself than see those around him hurt.

So Ren had decided to drop his own fears and just have faith. The decision was influenced primarily by Naruto's actions, but also due in no small part to another of Nora's wisdom. Ren knew how strong Naruto was, meaning he knew that his strength was beyond fathoming. So if there was nothing that could be done to stop it, why bother worrying?

The three teammates waiting for their leader — who really was taking longer than normal — was only half out of curiosity. They had Professor Goodwitch's class to open up the day, which meant dragging their kicking and screaming leader along with them to what would assuredly be his umpteenth spar in the class. Ren himself had only been called up thrice, but Goodwitch seemed keen on their leader's abilities. He wondered if it would do more harm than good to caution the professor about not poking her nose where it needn't go.

It quickly became apparent that today would not be like the other days. When Naruto emerged from the washroom Ren couldn't help but blink stupidly, an automatic reflex as his mind tried to reform around the idea that the person before them was their leader.

"Sorry about the wait." Naruto apologized as he made his way towards the hallway exit. Nora moved so fast to intercept him that the skid across the floor, only stopping once she slammed into the door.

"Are we going to war? Did we get a mission? Are you going on a date?" Nora machine-gunned out her questions without giving him an opportunity to answer any of them.

Ren could understand where she was coming from. Gone was Naruto's normal overly casual dress of sweats and a shirt. In its place was a red cloak with black flames trimming the bottom. Underneath that was an orange and black jumpsuit that fit tight to his body. His normal sneakers were replaced by some type of open toed sandal that appeared surprisingly secure on Naruto's feet. There was also a large gourd secured horizontally onto the lower part of his back, but Ren had no idea what was inside of it.

The biggest surprise was the scabbard strapped on his right hip. Ren didn't want to call it a scabbard, for it didn't really look like one, but its purpose was obviously to hold swords. Seven sword handles protruded from the rectangular scabbard. Naruto had never fought with anything other than kunai, fists, and semblance, so seeing him with an abundance of weaponry was a bit of a shock.

The whole ensemble was immaculately kept and polished, a great deal of love clearly having been put into its maintenance. Which made the headband he wore all the more puzzling. It was a black clothed headband with a silver metal centerpiece, a singular symbol carved into its center. The metal had clearly been polished and had no rust to speak of. So why was there a large gash cutting horizontally through it?

"Nothing's going on." Naruto chuckled. "I just figured I'd actually bring my field gear with me to Glynda's class for a change."

"I wasn't aware you had combat gear." Pyrrha admitted. Ren was polite enough to not point out how smitten she looked with their leader's new attire, but apparently not enough so to avoid chuckling about it.

"I use a few different weapons for fun. These seven are my favorite though." Naruto patted the presumed swords. "They used to belong to one of my teachers."

"I donno," Nora mused aloud, "I just didn't picture you as a sword guy. Of all the cool weapons in the world you pick something so vanilla? What a letdown!"

Naruto smirked with clear amusement. "Trust me, nothing about how I use these is vanilla. Took me far longer than it should have to learn to use my teacher's style." He stared off into nothingness, immersed in a past none of them could see.

"Maybe we should interrogate Naruto as we walk — or better yet jog to Professor Goodwitch's class." Pyrrha suggested somewhat frantically as she checked her scroll clock. The rest of the team did much the same.

"That would be wise."

"RUN!"

"Let's move Nevermore!"

It would be hard to argue that the breakneck blitz they were running at could be constituted as jogging in any world, but Ren decided not to caution his team about the rules and safety at that time. Everyone knew Professor Goodwitch had it out for Naruto, and Ren absolutely refused to let that bleed into the rest of their team. He noted that the professor hadn't called him up recently, but dismissed the thought for fear it might somehow weigh down his feet. Their pace was such that any and all interrogation was temporarily shelved in lieu of utilizing it with their muscles to faster propel them forward.

Whether it was through luck or the virtue of their alacrity was a debatable point, but the team managed to get to the classroom and plant themselves firmly in their seats right as the bell rang. Professor Goodwitch remained oblivious to their near-tardiness as she strode out to the stage below.

"My name is Professor Goodwitch. I am responsible for the combat training classes here at Beacon Academy. Today we welcome the students from Shade Academy, Atlas Academy, and Mistral Academy."

Ren had actually forgotten about that. The usually half vacant classroom was now filled to capacity. The students he presumed to be from Shade wore street clothes and appeared to have a generally lower standard of classroom behavior, at least if the number of feet propped up on the desks were any indication. The Atlas Academy had a much more strict uniform policy, but Ren would have been willing to gamble he could have guessed who they were without it. The upright and military posture was universal across their students. The uniform for Mistral was black and white, relatively simple compared to both Atlas and their own, but at the very least it was still a uniform.

Ren was not one to believe in coincidences. Their leader had worn the same singular outfit every day since he'd arrived here, barring the time they threw all his clothes in the laundry and he was forced to wear his uniform. Though the exact specifics still eluded him, Ren was certain the influx of students had caused Naruto to equip himself as if he was heading to war. What didn't make sense is why Naruto would do anything to raise his profile in front of even more people. He'd been so reserved about his power when he first came to the school, yet it felt like that control was slowly eroding over time.

Professor Goodwitch's lecture was fairly advanced, focusing mainly on aura and combat tactics. Ren saw more than a few confused looks from the students of all the schools. He smirked, realizing this was probably a method to convince the other schools that Beacon was further along than they actually were.

Normally the aura part of the lecture would have been fascinating to Naruto. If there was one area of study their leader had shown passion for it was all things aura and how it worked. For one reason or another, Naruto seemed disinterested in today's lecture. Ren might go so far as to say impatient. This too he chalked up to the appearance of the new students as it was the only anomaly that made itself readily available for blame.

Professor Goodwitch's lecture was longer than usual, making it appear unlikely there would be a chance for any bout that day. The teacher usually opted to leave enough time for a few spars at the end of the class, each having begun to feel like they had the odds of a coin flip to contain their leader. Until recently, that is. For whatever reason Naruto hadn't been called down in the past three or four days.

"And with that in mind this lecture is concluded." Professor Goodwitch concluded. Whatever she had said prior was completely lost on Ren, who himself had been lost in his thoughts. "Normally my class would conclude with a multitude of sparring matches between you students, however today's class ran a bit long. As such we will only have time enough for a singular match. Would anybody wish to volunteer?"

In the audience there were only two raised hands. The second hand had gone up after Professor Goodwitch had asked the question. It belonged to a grey haired Mantle student whom Ren could only describe as smarmy. The first hand shot up like it was fired from a rifle as soon as Professor Goodwitch had begun to pose the question. The hand was familiar to be sure, but the action of said hand being used to volunteer was foreign enough to make Ren second guess what he was seeing. The number of Beacon eyes drawn to said second hand, Professor Goodwitch's included, proved that he wasn't alone in that thought.

"Did you have a question Mr. Uzumaki?"

"No?" Naruto answered, appearing slightly confused. An attitude which still put him an arm and a leg above most of Beacon seeing as they were majorly confused.

"Your hand?"

"Volunteering?" The two exchanged sentences in implication behind the paltry sum of words they were actually using.

Professor Goodwitch surprisingly wasn't shell shocked, but RWBY, CRDL, and NVR certainly were.

"Who are you and what have you done with our Fearless Leader?!" Nora whispered at Naruto. The blond didn't spare her a glance.

"I believed you were quite fed up with demonstrating in this class. I had been making an effort to respect that." Professor Goodwitch confirmed Ren's suspicion. He added another item to the list of things he didn't understand. "If this is some attempt to ensure you don't have to participate in the future it is wholly unnecessary."

"Nah, nothing like that." Naruto waved her off with a grin. "I just thought we should lead with a show of force."

"A show of force?" Professor Goodwitch asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Well yeah. I figure some people might want to try and conquer Beacon..." something snapped, but Ren couldn't make out its location. A pencil perhaps? "You know, think they can beat us at the upcoming tournament."

"And you want to show off your abilities, therefore giving them the ability to devise strategies against you?" Professor Goodwitch asked skeptically.

"Nah, nothing like that." Naruto chuckled darkly. Ren never realized until that moment just how morbid the sound of laughter could be made to sound. "I want to show off a bit so they know not to bother."

Professor Goodwitch hid it well, but Ren could make out the smallest of smiles that had managed to make it through her prodigious self control. "Very well. If you wish to show the best Beacon has to offer I assume you wish your sparring partner to be Ms. Nikos?" Pyrrha sat up hopefully, her eyes a mix between blazing with anticipation and sparkling with joy.

"Nope!" Naruto popped the 'P', a habit he had picked up from ambient contact with Ruby. Pyrrha slumped into her chair with substantially less energy than she'd had previously. "I made a new friend from one of the other schools. Figured I'd take her for a spin. My opponent will be Cinder Fall."

Naruto didn't wait to gain the professor's agreement, instead opting to vault out of his seat and stride over towards the grey haired boy who'd previously been raising his hand. As it turned out it was not he who was their leader's target, but the breathtakingly gorgeous woman beside him. Naruto extended his hand slowly and gently as one might ask a lady for a dance.

The lady accepted, daintily taking his hand in her own with a smile like the darkest of chocolates. It was a smile that looked like a delectable treat, but contained bitterness beneath its appearance.

"I would be delighted to oblige." Cinder spoke loud enough for all to hear. When she spoke again it was a at a volume indicating the message was much more private. So much so that Ren struggled to hear it. "I do hope you'll make this worth my while."

"I make sure to finish whatever or whomever i start."

"I've been told I require much to finish. Are you confident you can provide enough for me?"

"I've been able to handle most women that I meet, barring a few exceptions."

"Then I'll just have to show you I'm not like most women." The raven haired woman purred as she made her way down the stairs, hips sashaying seductively as she went. The face their leader wore was voracious as he stalked after her like a predator finding its prey.

"Why bother with subtext when you're gonna lay it on that thick?" Yang cackled. "Man she wants it bad."

"Ummm… errr… awawawa…" Ruby had lost the ability to articulate words. Even with all her innocence there was no misunderstanding what had just taken place.

"That was highly inappropriate." Weiss flushed in embarrassment as well. Blake didn't respond, but her face had transformed into an interested smirk.

"Do they know each other?" Pyrrha asked anxiously.

"Trust me, you've got nothing to worry about." Yang assured the redhead, her cackling having regressed down to chuckles as the spartan blushed at having been so obviously found out. "If good looks and straightforwardness were all it took he'd be off the market by now. Pretty sure he's just messing around."

"Not very tastefully." Weiss grimaced. "I honestly didn't believe him to be that kind of man."

Yang mulled over those words briefly. "You have a point. We played around a little like that during initiation, but he took more of the bulldozer approach. I teased him a bit and he just cut straight through the subtext before teasing me back. Can't say I'm sure, but this doesn't feel like him."

"You all think too much." Nora spoke, her eyes tracking Naruto intently. "Naruto doesn't care about girls."

"So what is this about?" Ren asked his childhood friend.

"Fighting." Nora assured them. "He always likes to fight. They're about to start." Nora hushed them, directing all their attention to the stage where the two now stood opposite each other. Cinder had drawn a sword whereas two kunai fell out of Naruto's sleeves with a small puff of smoke, landing in his hands as he settled into his stance. As the two fighters ready Ren noticed that Naruto's fox has taken up residence on the desk in front of their leader's seat. The fox stared down at the two fighters with malevolence glee.

All the hair on Ren's body bristled. That probably wasn't a good sign.

* * *

"So we finally get to meet Velv's boytoy." Coco smirked as her partner blushed. Team CFVY had decided to mobilize for a singular purpose. Apparently her partner's crush was going to be taking part in a match today. CFY unanimously agreed to tag along in order to scout out, observe, and if necessary haze their teammates paramour.

"He isn't my… that!" The bunny-girl insisted furiously. "He just said he'd be sparring today so I wanted to watch."

"Is that why you were giggling at your phone for the better part of last night?" Fox asked.

"I just- he just- sue me!" She threw her hands up in exasperation.

"How'd you even figure out he'd be sparring today?" Coco asked as they continued to walk towards Goodwitch's classroom.

"He seemed to be in a good mood." Velvet explained as they were just about to arrive. "When I asked him about it he said he 'found someone to challenge head on'. When I asked what he meant he just said he'd be sparring one of the transfer students today."

"Can't blame him." Fox whistled, flicking his eyes towards the window into Goodwitch's classroom.

"Yeah, even I wouldn't mind facing her head on." Coco felt tempted to catcall Naruto's opponent. "Damn she's hot. Not as hot as myself, but hey, who is?"

Velvet's mouth gaped like a fish out of water as she glued her face to the window parading the best vantage of the classroom. Naruto stood across from a woman who was just absolutely gorgeous. A lot of the women from Beacon were fairly attractive, but this one didn't ooze sex appeal so much as fire it out on all cylinders. The eyes Naruto was looking at her with didn't do anything to help Velvet's confidence.

She was so anxious that the hair on her arms stood on end. That probably wasn't a good sign.

* * *

Glynda couldn't help but second guess her decision as the two students descended down the stairs to the battle stage. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with Ms. Fall, but with Mr. Uzumaki. His eyes shines bright with desire, hunger, and maybe even glimpses of madness as he followed after his opponent.

The student who had resisted their poking and prodding to reveal his strength at every turn had not only volunteered for combat, but had said his motive was to show Beacon's strength. The student who concealed everything was now armed to the teeth with blades and a mysterious gourd bouncing weightily across his back. The student who hid himself from them could not hide his mounting glee, manic as it was.

She did not know what had possessed the boy, but it threatened to make her shiver as her hair stood on end. That definitely wasn't a good sign.

* * *

She so very much loved it when people made her job easy for her. She'd spent an inordinate amount of time time trying to figure out the best way to approach Uzumaki, a way in which she did not alert anyone else interested in him that she was as well. For whatever reason he had taken to veiled threats within tens of seconds of their meeting, but Cinder didn't believe he played on Ozpin's side. Just from the way the teacher spoke it sounded as if they were trying to court him, as if Beacon was seeing fit to accommodate him.

That meant that Beacon had not yet wooed him. It meant he was a piece that had yet to be played on the board. What better way to decide if he was a piece worth wielding than to play with him herself.

"The spar will begin on my mark." Professor Goodwitch announced. "Are the fighters ready?"

Cinder nodded, but Uzumaki did not. His eyes were transfixed upon her in a way that made her shiver with anticipation. Men had ogled her in perversion many times, some of which she herself invited. Seduction was a useful tool to make some do as she wished. Experienced as she was she could tell when the lustful gazes of men fell upon her. Uzumaki's eyes were not that of lust, but something even more base. Cinder knew not what that was, but she knew that it was so.

"Mr. Uzumaki… Mr. Uzumaki… Naruto!" Goodwitch finally shouted his first name, shaking his lazer focus off of Cinder.

"Wha-yeah I'm ready. Start us off." He spared a glance to the teacher, taking a deep breath as he turned back towards Cinder. When his eyes returned to her own they were substantially calmer. "Let's start this slow."

"Three-"

"I'd hate for it to end too quickly." Cinder agreed coyly, flashing him a seductive smile meant to unnerve him.

"Two-"

"My thoughts exactly." Naruto brought his right leg forward unfazed, bending his knee into a forward lunge.

"One."

Uzumaki disappeared from her view as soon as the countdown reached its climax. Cinder couldn't track him, but she didn't need to. She twisted her core and swung her blade behind her in a whirlwind of motion, it stopped abruptly as the noise of grinding steel welcomed her ears.

Her eyes caught up to her weapon clashing with Uzumaki's kunai, the man himself midair above her. She flourished her sword, sweeping his knives aside as she turned her body in a full circle to chamber a powerful thrust of her weapon. A single outstretched hand stopped her blade like it had hit a wall, knocking it back as Uzumaki disengaged with a backflip after landing.

 _His semblance is as Roman described it._ Cinder thought to herself as the blond eyed her with a grin. Supposedly Uzumaki used his semblance primarily for small scale blocks and positioning purpose, however he was also capable of increasing its force. Obviously doing so must have been taxing on his aura, so he instead used it as more of a combat aid rather than a means of fighting. _His speed is just as Torchwick said as well._

"A little bit faster." Uzumaki muttered as he set back into his forward lunge. Cinder prepared herself once more, both attempting to see the attack as it came as well as defending herself if she couldn't. Despite her efforts she was no more capable of seeing his assault the second time as he vanished from sight. True to her calculations he did not attack from behind, instead showing up in her left peripherals.

Once again their weapons clanged together, metal grinding as they slid up and down before finding purchase in each other. Uzumaki was once again midair, the maddened smile on his face from earlier slowly returning.

And then he wasn't.

Just as before Uzumaki disappeared from her field of vision entirely. The only hint of where he'd gone was from the way their weapons separated. Cinder felt her blade move left as he vanished, so she assumed that he moved in a similar direction. Frustration bubbled within her because that was the best she could do — assume. Once again swinging her blade behind her she caught Uzumaki's weapon inches away from her body.

A singular grin was all she saw before he vanished once more.

* * *

"What the hell!?" Russel swore as they watched the ensuing fight between Naruto and the transfer student. CRDL was seated behind RWBY who was behind NVR, so the not so subtly spoken words reached all intended parties and then some.

Naruto kept disappearing and reappearing at various angles around his opponent. Striking and retreating before his opponent could retaliate. Even though each and every one of his strikes was blocked it was clearly his opponent who was pinned down. On the scoring screen behind the fight two fully green aura bars shown in bright defiance of common sense. Whatever Naruto was doing was clearly not taxing him in the least. His opponent was much the same, but she only managed to defend herself from each attack by a hair's breadth.

"That's not a bad way to put it." Blake said blankly. She wasn't sure how else to react.

"So he's fast, he's strong, and he's got a killer semblance." Cardin grunted, obviously annoyed. "Talk about a stacked deck."

"Eh, he's fast, but Ruby's faster." Yang shrugged.

"I don't know if I am." When Ruby spoke it was so frail, so fragile that it looked like her very being might break. "He's stronger, he's a better leader, and I don't even know if I'm faster than him."

"Naw, cmon Rubes. You're definitely faster." Yang rested a reassuring hand on her sister's shoulder.

Ren shook his head. "I can always see Ruby when she activates her semblance. I can't say the same right now."

Yang clearly wanted to protest, but she couldn't. Nobody could see the NNVR leader as he seemed to blink from place to place. Silence descended as all eyes were glued to the combat before them.

* * *

Cinder was agitated to say the least of her current situation. Uzumaki was like a fly buzzing about her that she could not quite catch. His movement was predictable enough to respond to, but to retaliate was to risk leaving herself open should she miss. Cinder wanted to avoid using dust to deal with something so paltry, but she hadn't figured another way out of her current situation.

It turned out that she wouldn't need to. As she batted his umpteenth attack away Uzumaki opted to let the momentum of her attack carry him away, sliding across the floor until his momentum died out. Cinder considered rushing him down, but the point of this fight was not victory. She _would_ win of course, but she needed to see more of his capabilities beforehand.

"Guess you've earned something special." Uzumaki's face fiendishly feral. A wantonly simple joy seemed to dance across his devilish smile. Cinder didn't banter back, but only because she heard a very unique sound. The noise was so out of place that her brain failed to process it until she saw a cork fall to the ground, bouncing away after it made impact. Sand trickled ominously to the floor from the gourd on his back.

Uzumaki placed his hand on his stomach and twisted it. Out of nowhere a small creature with beady yellow eyes appeared on his shoulder. Cinder did not have time to question what the creature's purpose was before it was made apparent. Sand spurt forth from the gourd like water from a hydrant, swirling in a vortex around Uzumaki. He crossed his arms as he stood still, more and more sand spewing forth from the container.

 _This must be his second semblance._ Cinder realized. She'd been warned that Uzumaki had some second semblance, but no one in her organization had been able to determine what.

She wasn't given any longer to think on it before he began his assault. Around half of the sand he'd summoned broke off and fired at her like water from a hydrant. Cinder didn't try to beat off the attack, rather she chose to dodge to the left and step inward towards Uzumaki. This was a semblance meant to keep people at range, she wouldn't let that happen.

Her dash in was fast, closing the gap between them in seconds. The sand that had previously attacked her was sluggishly attempting to catch her, but she'd built enough distance to be confident it wouldn't matter. Her problem was the spinning circle of sand around him. After his assault the sand dedicated to defense had lessened to the point where she felt comfortable in an assault. Ducking below the circle she thrust her blade forward towards his abdomen.

The spinning circle formed into a solid wall, killing the penetrating force of her thrust as the sand entrapped her blade. Slowly but surely the sand crawled up her blade, increasing its grip while it attempted to envelop her weapon. Time was her enemy as the attacking sand drew closer and her weapon became fixed in his defensive sand.

With no more than an activation of the fire dust within the blade the area around her sword exploded, leaving a hole for her to swiftly dislodge her sword. With a flourish she front flipped over Uzumaki's head, stabbing downward at the apex of her jump. Once more the sand moved to thwart her. Once more she was forced to use her dust to disengage. Once more she found a new angle from which to strike.

It was her turn to be on the offensive. It was her turn to find the opening.

* * *

"The kid ain't half bad." Coco smirked, sounding slightly impressed. She really was, too. The first year had an interesting fighting style. At first she just thought he was some sort of speedster, but that line of thinking was derailed by the thirty seconds of standing still as the babe tried to find a way to penetrate his sand defenses while also trying to avoid being caught by his attacks.

"Mmmmm." Yatsuhashi hummed, sounding less impressed than she was. "The way he fights is to have intellect without wisdom."

"English, Yats?" Fox requested.

The large man grunted. "If speed is his strength to then stand still is unwise. He would likely find an opening if he moved as he had before while using his semblance."

"He's just a first year." Velvet defended Naruto as her eyes were still glued to the fight. "A lot of first years don't have perfect control over their semblances. Maybe it requires too much concentration for him to move while using it."

"Then he should train until he can." Yatsuhashi concluded. Velvet might have argued more in Naruto's defense had something not pulled her attention elsewhere. Down on the stage Naruto uncrossed his arms as his opponent was still trying to find an opening in his defenses.

When he began to move his hands the tide of battle changed.

Each grain of sand was like a soldier marched faster by the upbeat tempo of their drummer as Naruto's hands began to move and direct the sand. The speed at which it moved was almost twice as fast as it had previously. His opponent's assault immediately stalled out as she was forced to go on the defensive. Two separate streams of sand chased after her like bloodhounds as she was forced to run, flip, duck, and any other means at her disposal just to elude being captured by the sand.

"Well that wasn't what Yats meant, but he _is_ going faster." Fox chuckled.

Velvet had never seen Naruto fight before. She had expected him to be strong. You don't get to be as confident as he'd been when he rescued her without some skill to back it up. She hadn't expected him to be this strong! Despite the fact that Naruto was driving his opponent into a corner with his semblance his aura stood resolutely full as his opponent's slowly dropped to the low nineties.

She felt something as she watched him fight, something she couldn't quite put into words. The way he fought, the confidence in his semblance to remain immobile as a sword slashed down upon him, it just didn't feel right. He didn't have the desperation to win that a freshman would normally have. He probed his opponent, measuring her responses and adjusting his attacks accordingly. It was like watching someone with an old weighted scale; he slowly slid the weight heavier and heavier until he found out the exact measure of his opponent's skill.

Velvet couldn't make out Naruto's eyes as far away as she was, but what she could see was his smile. It wasn't the goofy grin she loved to see, it wasn't his mischievous smirk… she didn't know what it was. The only thing she knew about it was that it scared her.

* * *

The eyes Uzumaki used to drink her in were not of a sexual nature, but she didn't know what they were either… at least at first. Diving into a somersault to narrowly avoid the converging paths of the two streams of sand Cinder realized what she had seen in those eyes. The realization came easier now, primarily due to those same eyes undressing her now. Those eyes saw every attack, every defense, and every possible escape route she could use. He was allowing her windows to escape, shrinking them with each passing attack to see if she could make it.

He was playing with her.

The reality of the situation vexed her most thoroughly. Although Cinder did not enjoy losing she was smart enough to accept it as a necessary ruse in some situations. Sometimes a plan came together not by a show of force, but one of weakness. What vexed her was the idea that she was being played with. His eyes were not like hers, orbs analyzing the strengths of their opponent in order to find the route towards victory. No, his more closely resembled the eyes of a predator watching a steak marinade. Eyes that viewed their current struggle as no more than a preamble or foreplay before reaching the main event. As the sand relented its assault and returned towards Uzumaki she recognized the words his feral eyes, now red in color clearly conveyed.

It was time to feast.

"This is the best fight I've had in some time." Uzumaki's words were gracious. Cinder had no doubt that he had enjoyed their bout. "I'll show you something as thanks."

The creature on his shoulder jumped off, grabbing the gourd off Uzumaki's back as it rolled to the edge of the arena. He grabbed the scabbard on his side and jolted it upward. Seven swords flew straight into the air, light reflecting off of their sheened polish. One by one each of the blades fell down towards Uzumaki as he caught them.

Two blades fell between the crook of each elbow, one between his right shoulder and his head. One more was secured between his left bicep and his body while another was caught as his right leg snapped shut to catch it beneath his knee. Of the two final blades a singular sword was caught between his abdomen and his already sword bearing leg as he pulled it tight to his body to secure its place. The final one stayed airborne for the longest giving Naruto time to say-

"If you've got anything left you wanna show off, do it fast." Before he caught the final blade in his mouth. As ridiculous as it would have sounded on paper, Cinder did not find herself the least bit amused. The pressure put on by Uzumaki was crushing as he balanced on one leg staring her down.

She would have to use more of her power to drag out every last drop of his own. She knew that with her newfound power Uzumaki could not beat her in a fight. No man could stand on level playing field with a maiden, even if she was only half so. Cinder once more resolved to learn everything she could about this Uzumaki before their match was over.

* * *

"He really isn't fond of guns." Dove remarked as Naruto stood like a holiday tree decorated with swords.

"He really is fond of screwing around." Sky sighed exasperatedly. "This was a pretty insane fight. Why the hell is he screwing around now?" Most of them thought it was a fair question as they looked at the ridiculous looking stance he'd adopted. Seven swords and not a single one of them in his hands?

Pyrrha disagreed. "He's going to show us something… I don't know what, but I'm sure it will be the hardest we've ever seen him fight."

"Dude's more likely to stab himself like that than the chick." Russel sniggered.

"I've been on the receiving end of his semblance." Yang chimed in. "No way he's going to be stronger than that by standing there like a fountain ornament."

Pyrrha furiously shook her head while refusing to remove her eyes from what she was sure was the calm before the storm. "He's pressed, more pressed than we've ever seen him before. He wouldn't disrespect someone who pushed him this far."

"He's still maxed out on aura." Ren reminded her. "His opponent is losing hers slowly, but she's still losing hers. The scale says he's no more pressed than when he fought Winchester."

"Hey!"

"You don't get it." Pyrrha's words were breathless, a melancholy painting each and every one. "She's the only one who has even stood in the ring this long with him. To make light of her now would be to cheapen that accomplishment."

"Accomplishment?" Ren asked

"What else could it be called?" Dove seconded Pyrrha. "I do not believe anyone has stood this long against him. You could say it is because he has not used his polarity semblance, but how many of us could have held up under his initial barrage?"

"I don't understand." Nora's voice sounded distant. She wasn't responding to what Sky had said, but rather she'd noticed something she didn't understand. "He's smiling like he's so happy, but he just feels so sad."

"Enough to stoke the appetite, yet not enough to sate it." A wizened voice spoke behind them. Only a few of them turned to identify who it was as the rest continued to wait for the lengthy hiatus of the combat to end.

"Headmaster?!" Weiss shrieked in surprise. The man held up a finger to his lips to shush her.

"Indeed. It appears this fight has drawn quite the crowd." He gestured to the windows of the classroom. Students were packed like sardines as they tried to get a view of what was happening below. "I do believe Mr. Uzumaki is about to make his move." The headmaster redirected them towards the stage. Not one second later Naruto engaged his opponent.

It took much less than a second for him to reach her. Bending the knee of the leg that was supporting his weight he shot at Cinder like an arrow loosed from a bow. She sidestepped his bullet-like assault, but before he passed her Naruto threw two of his lower swords spinning dangerously into the air a few heads above her. With his legs unburdened from holding the swords Naruto was able to step in with his speed and end up directly behind her.

The two swords lodged in the crooks of his elbows came down on her like a hammer. When Cinder blocked the strike the ground beneath her cracked and caved as the metal rang out like a bell. Those two swords were launched spiraling into the air as he disappeared once more, only for him to grab the first two swords he had thrown with his hands as they were coming down on Cinder's head. Once more she blocked high as he came at her from the air, the ground cratering deeper beneath her as her aura hissed and crackled to negate the damage, but this time Naruto didn't retreat.

Tilting his head at an angle he swept his blade upwards from the lowest point, circumventing Cinder's guard. Her weapon ignited in flames as it shot small fireballs at Naruto. In an inhuman feat of strength he fired himself into the air by using the two swords to launch himself off Cinder's weapon to dodge the projectiles, but only after he loosed the sword in his mouth in order to fling it directly into Cinder, further chipping her aura. Only two swords remained in his possession as he took to the sky, the rest clanging harmlessly to the ground around Cinder.

Those seemingly harmless swords turned out to be anything but as they sprung to life and shot through the air towards Naruto, two of them slicing Cinder's aura further in the process. He caught all his blades exactly as he had when he'd first drew them despite being twenty feet in the air.

"That was kind of like Pyrrha's semblance wasn't it?" Ruby asked. Pyrrha had been having the exact same thought, but she was too engrossed to hear Ruby at all.

"Enough!" Cinder commanded, fire dust blazing as larger fireballs fired from her weapon to shoot him down. The sand that had been lying lifelessly on the ground was imbued with life as it shot through the air. It didn't seek to block her attack, rather it made a path for Naruto to slide down like he was skiing as he threw his swords like projectiles. The two traded missiles as Naruto slid circles around her on his ever-shifting pipeline of sand. Cinder was forced to dodge not only the swords as they came at her, but as they returned to Naruto. Try as she might the occasional sword would clip her and tear away some of her aura. She was now sitting uncomfortably in the low fifties.

Eventually Naruto's sand brought him back to the ground where Cinder rushed at him, unwilling to give him time to act as she was losing the long-distance fight. A disc of sand formed under Naruto's feet and floated him through the air as he continued to throw his swords with such force they impaled into the ground before being quickly recalled.

"I must admit, I didn't believe you'd be the type to skirt around and hide." Cinder goaded him. Every single person who could hear her knew she was goading him. Naruto probably knew that himself.

That being said it still worked.

"I'll end this up close and personal." Naruto growled as his sand disk angled itself towards her. Due to the height he was hovering above the fight he ended up tilted at a forty-five degree angle downward, yet he didn't fall. More sand converged upon his disk as it grew in size. Naruto crouched closer to the disk with all his swords on his person, chambering a jump as he stared Cinder down with blazing red eyes.

An ominous red bubble appeared overtop Naruto's clothed arm. His fox appeared to chuckle beside Pyrrha. When the bubble burst everything happened at once.

The enlarged disc of sand shot towards Cinder carrying Naruto headfirst. He jumped from the disc as he closed in on her, accelerating himself further and giving his body spin. He fired himself through the air like a spinning top, albeit at a speed that felt supersonic.

Cinder couldn't dodge. She took two blades to the stomach and shoulder, tearing her clothes as her aura flared wildly to protect her. Naruto didn't bother jumping around this time, nor did he make an attempt to outmaneuver her. His assault from that point on was full frontal. The only maneuvering being done was his body twisting and contorting to toss and grab his swords as the seven blades came from angles too varied and fast for anyone's eyes to track.

Cinder had taken hits previously, but not like this. Even if she blocked three blades four more would slice shallow cuts as they were flicked, slashed and spun faster than her eyes could take in or her brain could process. Her aura began to plummet as it valiantly protected her from the onslaught that sieged her. Fireballs shot from her weapon in an attempt to buy her space, but were slashed by blade after blade until they dissipated harmlessly as Naruto refused to relent.

Pyrrha saw it before Cinder did. The fighter was being corralled into an area dusted heavily with sand. Even if she had seen it Pyrrha didn't know what could have been done about it. Cinder was forced to backpedal just to avoid taking even more hits than she already was.

When Cinder's left foot touched the sand Pyrrha knew the fight was over. The previously sedentary earth came to life and rolled her heel backwards, causing Cinder to slip.

"Sting!" Naruto's voice was impassioned like she'd never heard. Two more red bubbles appeared and popped. On the display Naruto's aura went above one-hundred percent.

All of his swords were loosed like a volley of arrows straight into Cinder. Miraculously- no, that wasn't right. Intentionally none of the swords found Cinder's flesh. The seven swords impaled themselves shallowly in the concrete stage like a prison around her, the sharpened blades all pointed directly at Cinder. With swiftness and accuracy Naruto kicked, hit and used his semblance to push all the blades so far into the ground that the simple act of moving was synonymous with self-harm for Cinder.

"Don't fight. You'd lose." Naruto warned Cinder. That much was obvious to Pyrrha and everyone else in the room. The position Naruto's opponent found herself in was a simple one…

That of total submission.

* * *

Cinder had wondered why Uzumaki had sought her out so publically. Did he actually want to be her friend? Did he desire a challenging opponent? Did he desire her? All of those were possible, all options still potentially in play, but he'd had a greater purpose.

It was subtle. It was the type of subtlety so hidden that you had to be fully aware of the situation to understand what had actually been said. To many Uzumaki's words were most likely perceived as a declaration of victory. 'Don't fight. You lose.' was what they'd heard. Those were not his words, however. The words he'd spoken were not even a syllable different, just a singular letter.

 _Don't fight. You'd lose._ It was a warning. He hadn't said to **stop** fighting because she **had** lost. He'd said to **not** fight because she **would** lose. That's how Cinder knew it was not his way of claiming his win, but of cautioning her against any action against him. He did not wish her to know he had won, but that he would win again if they ever were at odds.

" _Do not make me your enemy. You would lose."_ That was his message. Cinder had just arrived at the school and Uzumaki had already identified her as a threat. Had she been thinking straight that wouldn't have been the worst of news. If she was in the school and Uzumaki knew then clearly his loyalties did not lie with Ozpin, at least not fully.

However, Cinder was not thinking straight. All this time she'd thought Uzumaki was sizing her up in some way. No, he had been playing with her like a fox would a mouse. He'd let her run hither and yon for his amusement and nothing more.

Cinder ignited all her remaining dust, launching a fireball from her restrained hand large enough to engulf her foe. It wouldn't kill him, oh no, but after everything he'd done there would be no way this was considered excessive force. It was too close for him to dodge, she would take this round.

Uzumaki outstretched his hand as his eyes turned purple. As soon as the fireball met his hand Cinder could swear the space around his palm began to shimmer. She wouldn't have believed what happened next unless she had seen it with her own eyes. Even then she wondered if that was worth trusting.

Her fire was dissipating.

A few seconds passed and then there was nothing. No sign of any attack, not in its physical manifestation or by any wounds it would have caused on Uzumaki. He emerged completely unscathed. He knelt down beside her immobilized form, a puff of smoke came from his right sleeve as a knife fell into his grip. He held it so close to her throat that she could feel the cold of the steel as well as its sharpness.

"Pretty sure this counts as overwhelming victory, Glynda." Uzumaki spoke as he stared into Cinder's eyes. His eyes were pools of sparkling blue as he looked down upon her. Any signs of madness or battlelust had left, replaced by an unwelcome kindness that seemed completely out of place after what had happened.

"This match is over. Mr. Uzumaki wins."

* * *

"Awwwww yeah. That's the stuff!" Naruto stretched lazily as he made his way back to his team. Class had been dismissed as soon as the fight had been called, but he needed a minute to gather his things and free Cinder. In that order, of course. Kurama had sniffed out some seriously bad vibes from her that day Ruby acted as a human shaped torpedo so Naruto decided to bring out the welcome wagon. Hopefully that discouraged her from whatever annoying nonsense she'd have tried getting up to.

His team had waited for him, no surprise there. Their sister team of RWBY and brother team of CRDL doing the same was barely more so. What was off was the way they were all acting. Everyone looked so stiff!

"Did ya have fun?" Nora beamed. Well, mostly everyone at least.

"Yeah, been awhile since I've cut loose like that." He admitted as he closed in on his seat. Since they were supposed to be leaving he didn't bother taking it, but other than Nora no one made a move to get up.

"That was an interesting way to use your swords." Ren said.

Naruto chuckled. "Told you there was nothing vanilla bout the way I use those."

"Super spicy!" Nora grinned

"I'll say," Yang joined the fray, "Speaking of spice, you holdin a torch for that girl?"

"Am I… what?" Naruto asked, confusion written clearly on his face.

"You know, do you like-like her." Nora clarified.

"Pffft! Not even remotely." Naruto chuckled. "I only met her because Ruby decided to introduce us."

"Ruby knows her?" Weiss asked, looking to her partner whose face was turning red.

"Wouldn't go that far. Ruby decided to barrel into her like a drunken bear. Made for a great icebreaker."

"Naruuutooo!" Ruby whined. "You said you wouldn't tell anyone!"

"I said I'd try." He corrected. "I did try, my will was just weak."

"Do you normally come on that strong to women you don't like? Women you just met?" Blake asked him dubiously. A change in topic that her leader seemed infinitely grateful for.

"She just looked like she'd be fun to fight so I didn't really care much about personal feelings. Also figured it didn't matter much if I waited a week to challenge her or did it now. Is that some sort of etiquette thing? Should I have waited before challenging any of the new kids?"

"I meant your flirting with her."

"What?!" Naruto panicked. "I didn't, I-what?!"

Nora walked over to him. "You know when you said…" Her voice trailed off into a whisper as she spoke close to his ear. Each sentence she spoke was explaining something he'd said to Cinder before their fight and the connotation of what he'd said. Nigh on seven decades of existence had obviously not rendered him immune to embarrassment, especially how he'd chosen to spend them. Naruto's face turned progressively more red as Nora explained piece by piece each and every thing that had been said.

"I… uhhh… wha…." Naruto stammered out nonsense when words just wouldn't come to him.

"Too bad," Yang grasped the situation quickly and decided to torment the fellow blond, "Looks like Foxy was stolen away by some Mistralian hussie."

Naruto spluttered denials in his defense as he tried to prevent shame from overtaking him. Most of his knowledge of the language was learned from books and that made for poor understanding of connotations and slang. All he'd intended to do was challenge her! It seemed enough to convince everyone, but that didn't stop a majority of them from poking fun at the normally impregnable huntsman regardless.

"Bragging about your _impressive_ stamina like that takes some balls." Cardin sniggered.

"Finishing whoever you start… how did you not get that one?" Sky sighed. With everything he'd seen tutoring Naruto he'd just learned to accept that some questions didn't have answers.

"You see that babe? Can't blame him for wanting to take her for a spin." Russel howled in laughter.

"Annnnnd let's move Nevermore!" Naruto commanded/begged as he strode straight out of the classroom. The group heckled and teased him, asked him questions about his swords and where he learned to fight. Everything felt the same as it had before. He'd shown off a little bit and they hadn't acted any differently towards him.

It was nice. He could never show who he was completely, but maybe he could relax around them a little more. Maybe coming to this school hadn't been so pointless after all.

* * *

"On a scale of one to ten you sound like a negative four." Roman's voice came through her scroll. "So I guess that means you met the brat."

She'd met him alright. Roman's description of his abilities had been woefully inadequate, but she couldn't blame him for that, though she wanted to. Cinder suspected that even her own gauge of his ability was not sufficient. The fight would have been different if she had used her maiden powers, though obviously she couldn't go flaunting those in Ozpin's domain. Beating Uzumaki was easily within her capabilities, that she assured herself. Still, he was far too valuable a piece to not be played.

She'd realized it after she'd left the class, but Uzumaki was definitely not aligned with Beacon. The professor had tried to accommodate him, bow to his wills. Him being a piece that they too wanted on their side and were currently in the process of converting was revealed by the professor's actions. The fact that Uzumaki both warned her off yet didn't sell her out meant that he too was playing some angle. Cinder decided she would make it a priority to make sure Uzumaki was her piece to play.

Of course she couldn't let Roman know any of that. "I'm more annoyed than anything, Roman. I had sent many people to investigate Beacon, you and your network included, yet I knew nothing of such a powerful player until days before I arrived."

"Look, the brat sprung out of the ground like a goddamn mushroom." Roman groused. "I've spent more time and resources looking into him. Still nothing! No one knows where he came from, who he is, or anything else."

"Someone always knows something. Your aptitude in finding that someone is one of the reasons you have value to me." Cinder let that statement hang in the air.

"Ugggghhhhh…" Roman groaned. "I can try having some people go door to door around Vale asking about him. I haven't done it yet not only because it's a pain in the ass, but I don't want him getting word we're looking into him. This won't be subtle. If he's got his finger on the pulse of Vale the word will get back to him."

"Not good enough, Roman."

"Aaaaaaggghhh!" Cinder could hear Roman scratching his head through the scroll's speaker. "I'll make up some bullshit about doing research for some newspaper article or something. Kid's getting enough popularity through his videos that it should be believable."

Cinder was humming her approval when an idea struck her. "You should go through with the idea. Find a paper to which we can apply pressure to publish the story. It will help solidify the cover story if Uzumaki ever chooses to investigate."

"That's a lot of work just to cover tracks he probably won't be able to find."

"It has other benefits as well…" Cinder didn't specify what those would be. Uzumaki perplexed her. Clearly he believed himself to be aligned against her, yet he didn't out her to Beacon. Whatever side of the fence he was playing on that meant he didn't want to drag attention to himself, but their fight was far higher level than any fight between students should have been. His actions contradicted each other too heavily for Cinder to discern his motives. Applying a bit of pressure would aid in the endeavor of clarifying his goals.

"Did the rally go to plan?" Cinder asked.

"Without a hitch. Showed off those Atlesian Paladins to the animals and got a whole brood of 'em joining up. Not many diamonds in the coal obviously."

"Quality is nice, but quantity has a value in itself."

After obtaining some specifics as to the exact numbers of the White Fang she allowed Roman to get back to work. Having more disposable pawns was always a good thing. They were the perfect pieces to sacrifice should the need ever arise.

As far as Uzumaki was concerned it wasn't difficult to find her approach. No small number of students had seen them talk. The content of that conversation should easily spread like wildfire, salacious as it was. This was essentially a high school after all. Should Ozpin or his ilk wonder why an unknown student was approaching their courted piece it would provide sufficient explanation.

 _Naruto Uzumaki_ … Cinder mouthed the words silently as she sat on her bed. An interesting fellow to be sure. Maybe he would make the game more interesting than she'd originally thought possible.

* * *

 _ **Oh poor poor Cinder. You still think you've got the edge. I am going to greatly enjoy pulling the rug out from under her repeatedly through the course of this story. To anyone who has not read Spotlight I have now normalized Sunday as my release date for the fic. To do so much more rapidly would be to risk forcing out a chapter I wasn't satisfied with. So you can now plan around the consistent Sunday release from this point forward!**_


	23. A Crack in the Jade

**_Greetings and salutations! Welcome everyone to chapter 22 of OFNT! There are quite a few things I want to touch on today so let's just rapid fire these out so we can get to the good stuff._**

 ** _To answer those who were confused about the Valentine's Day oneshot, and I emphasize this again, ONESHOT it is not canon to the story. The pairing (if there is one) has not yet been confirmed in this story. Of course I point this out prior to this chapter, but hey, what can you do?_**

 ** _Secondly I want to make clear (in case it wasn't) that Blake has failed to go White Fang crazy as of yet. It'll come, please believe me. The result of that was that the Atlesian Paladin bust that RWBY does with aid of Sun and Neptune in canon has failed to happen here. I mention that because it will be a really important plot point later and although I did mention it in the conversation between Cinder and Roman some may have glossed over it._**

 _ **Finally this chapter is shorter than most, but I did try and make it up to you guys! I intended to go snowboarding this Sunday so I needed to get the chapter done before I made the drive to Timberline. Of course god decided to bring the rain so I ultimately decided against it (the forecast promises snow next weekend, don't screw with me god). At the end of this chapter there will be a little snippet of an idea I've been storyboarding. As my patrons will know I have decided to begin production on a second story if I do hit a stretch goal. Regardless of which OFNT will continue as intended.**_

 _ **That's all folks. Be forewarned that the teaser for my next story will contain spoilers for season five of RWBY. If that miffs you DO NOT READ IT! With that being said I present to you Chapter 22 of An Old Fox's New Trick. See you guys next time. (also I adore my patrons! You guys are the bomb!)**_

* * *

 **Chapter 22**

 **A Crack in the Jade**

Cliché.

That was just the best word available to describe Velvet right now, hands down. She was lying stomach down on her bed in her polka dot pajamas as she propped herself up on her elbows. She'd been texting away on her scroll for entirely too long at this point with no signs of slowing down. Her most recently received text had her kicking her legs back and forth in glee.

" _Kami no! I've already gotten hell from everyone I know here about that. I was not coming onto her, I'm not interested in her, it was just a spar -.-"_

Velvet had been the one to show him he could make faces out of the symbols on his scroll's keyboard. Of all the ones she had shown him he used that one the most.

 _It was an amazing spar! Where did you even come up with the idea to use swords like that?_ She typed. Between using his swords as projectiles and the unbelievable way he managed to fight with seven swords at once he'd actually roused Coco into setting up a training session for her team. A session specifically focused on how to deal with it for the upcoming tournament.

She waited for him to respond as she let her mind wander. It usually took him awhile to message her back, but she knew that wasn't because he was ignoring her. Unless something came up he'd always text her back as soon as he received her's. It was just that the process of sending messages still took him three times as long as her grandma.

So she daydreamed about things she'd never actually have the courage to do. Maybe she could invite him to the dance? If she did then they could go dress shopping together! He'd be reluctant at first, but eventually she'd find a dress that would make it all worth it!

" _It was the fighting style of one of my teachers. I think he came up with it on his own."_

How it took him two minutes to type that out was a mystery Velvet had accepted would never be solved.

 _That doesn't surprise me! It's so unique it probably took him years to figure out! It must have been pretty hard to learn even with a teacher._

Coming up with a style like that was crazy, but learning it couldn't have been easy, even with a teacher. Maybe she was wrong about the dress idea? Would it be better to make sure her hypothetical date would be seeing her dress for the first time at the dance? Maybe she'd ask Coco- no! That way lie abundant teasing and embarrassment.

" _He didn't teach me. I just wanted to make sure his style lived on long after he did."_

That took the wind out of her sails.

 _I'm sorry for your loss._

What else could she say? She was worried she might have killed their conversation when five minutes passed and he hadn't replied.

" _Don't be. Bee lived a long and happy life. He loved to rap and fight even into his eighties… he was a bit of a goof. He didn't grow old and weak. Bee just kept living the same he always had until one day his body decided he was done. Going out with youth in his heart and rap on his lips is what he would have wanted."_

 _He sounds like he was a great man._ Velvet was about to send, but added something on. _Did you say he rapped?_

Naruto's response was jovially affirmative and the two dove into a conversation about his late teacher. Apparently he was the one who helped Naruto learn to get along with Kurama. Velvet had made sure to remember the Fox's name the first time she was told. She didn't know if the fox cared or not, but Naruto seemed to appreciate it being referred to by name.

 _You recreated his sword style from memory?! That must have taken you years! Did he train you when you were just a child?_

" _Yeah, I guess he did. Took me a lot of practice to learn it, but it was worth it."_

 _It really is incredibly powerful!_

" _I didn't learn it to be stronger."_

 _You didn't?_

Velvet grew anxious as the longest stretch tonight passed. When he finally replied it was a message whose length hardly warranted such a pause… its contents though. That was a different matter.

" _I just wanted to make sure I had something to remember him by. Even after the world forgot him I wanted to make sure I never did."_

It was a powerful emotion that washed over Velvet. She could easily claim that sword style to be the most mechanically challenging she had seen in her life. It wasn't even hard for her to imagine it being the hardest to master in all of Remnant. Despite that difficulty and despite not having someone to teach him Naruto pieced his mentor's style together just to share something with him? He'd dedicated years of his life to learn a specific way of fighting not to grow stronger, but to remember someone.

It had to have taken him half a decade to learn that at least! The idea that a seventeen year old would give up a third of their life for that was a heavy thought.

" _Hey Velvet, you've been here longer than I have. Do you know any good smithies in the area?"_

It was a topic change so obvious it would have been harder not to spot it than to do so. Still, she was grateful all the same. There was no way she could have asked to talk about something else and there wasn't much other than heartfelt niceties she could provide about his late mentor.

 _I know most of the smiths in Vale. Was there something you were looking to have made in particular?_

" _Just looking to get some kunai made. I've been using the few I have for way longer than I should've. They're pretty dinged up after clashing with all these fancy weapons."_

Naruto's kunai were pretty simple by Beacon standards, everything he used was. That wasn't to say his weapons were poorly made, just simple. She'd only seen him fight the one time, but his weapons hadn't mechashifted. His sand appeared to be just some facet of his semblance and not a accomplished by means of dust magic. They were kind of opposites in that way; Velvet would make everyone's weapon her own, whereas Naruto seemed to be the weapon himself. The tools he used to accomplish that were more like an afterthought than anything else.

" _Actually you don't have to worry about it. Apparently Pyr has some contacts with her old agency that custom smith her gear. She said she could just order some for me on her next ammo shipment."_

Velvet's eyes narrowed in irritation. For one why was his partner called 'Pyr'?! Naruto still called her Velvet exclusively. That meant she was already a point behind. She was behind another three points just because Pyrrha was his partner! She got to see him every day — she got to sleep in the same room with him — gah! This was her chance to balance the scales. Social awkwardness or not, Velvet was going in!

 _That's fine. I know a smith who works locally and specializes in that kind of weaponry, but it's hard to beat online orders for convenience. As long as you're willing to deal with the shipping delays, difficulty with custom requests and things like that. We always got cheaper prices from the local smiths in Vale after our team became regulars too. Something about that personal touch, right?_

Alright! The snare was set. Now all Velvet had to do was wait and hope she caught a fox in it. Obviously she could have done anything to pass the time. Equally obvious to any other teenager who'd been infatuated was that she instead opted to stare at her phone screen so intently that seconds stretched into what felt like minutes.

" _You've got a point. I do prefer talking to people instead of this whole online thing-"_ She knew that would work! Naruto's technical ineptitude was almost legendary. " _What's the name of this smith and where can I find him?"_

Alright. So far so good. She just needed to execute this next step verrry carefully.

 _His shop is a bit hard to find if you don't know where it is. I have to drop by this weekend, though. If you want I could take you with me and introduce you._

" _I wouldn't want to bother you."_

Oh it wouldn't be a bother. Not a bother at all…

 _We're friends! Friends help each other out. I'm thinking of going out around noon on Saturday. Would that work out for you?_

That was a trick Coco had taught her; don't ask if they wanted to go, but ask what time they wanted to go. It didn't exactly feel like her style… then again she didn't really have any experience with this. It was kind of hard to say what Velvet's style was.

" _If you're sure you won't mind. It would be nice to get this taken care of before one of them breaks. I've tried maintaining them as well as I could, but it just hasn't been enough."_

Velvet's feet fluttered back and forth as she squealed into her pillow. She'd done it! One point for her! Now all she needed to do was use this foothold to gain back any points she was behind. She just had to…

Wait, what was her plan again? She'd been overcome by the desire to one-up Pyrrha, but she hadn't thought of a follow up! She flipped on her back and banged her fists and feet on the bed in a picturesque tantrum.

"As much fun as this one woman act is to watch— and believe me it's a riot — you okay there Bun?" A voice jolted Velvet back to reality. The walls closed in as Velvet realized that any god that existed was most assuredly cruel and angry.

"Coco… how long have you been there?" Velvet asked with overwhelming dread.

"Too long to embarrass you any further than you already have yourself. At this point you've earned more teasing than I could dish out, and let me tell you that's saying something."

Velvet's lopsided smile was the best she could manage in response. Coco knew she could have broken it down with the faintest breeze of teasing. Instead her partner opted to take pity on her poor unfortunate soul.

"So I'm guessing something pretty good happened with the super first year." Velvet nodded. "And your panic attack probably means you have no idea what to do with your windfall."

Nothing Coco had said was a question. She knew her partner well enough to recognize reactions far less obtrusive than the full display she'd been given. Velv was a kickass fighter and a great partner, but self-confident she was not. Coco had been and was still impressed that she had been willing to butt heads with that Nikos chick at all. She didn't know much about her crush other than the fight she'd seen and the fact he helped Velv with some bullies, but hey, those were two items firmly in the positive category.

"Coco…" Velvet looked at her partner with pleading eyes. "Help?"

And that was all it took for Coco to be fully onboard. After all, who could say no to an adorable bunny?

* * *

"Does he think it's going to grow wings and fly away? Or maybe he thinks it will attack him if he takes his eyes off it!" Nora's rather loud session of hypothesizing was cut short by a pillow to the face. Its force was such that the cheery girl was knocked backwards like a target at a carnival game.

"You're loud enough that I don't need my eyes to do that." Naruto said as he placed his scroll on the bedside table. Nora retaliated and threw the pillow back at him futilely. Falling over proved enough to dodge his teammates cannonpillow.

"Just once I want to see you get hit." Nora complained. "If this invincible streak goes on much longer the next article will be about you!" She said as she thrust out the magazine she'd been looking at.

"Pretty sure I'm not gonna end up in an issue of 'Girl Power'. I don't think I'd fit in with the centerfolds about people like- Pyrrha?"

That got his irate (though he couldn't figure out why) partner's attention. Sure enough the centerfold of the magazine was one Pyrrha Nikos. A flip to the next page showed an article that couldn't be made out, but its title sure could be.

"Goddess of Victory wishes for challenge?" Naruto snorted. Pyrrha practically growled at him.

"I had been on a three year winning streak when they did that interview!" She defended herself. "I _was_ looking for a challenge!"

"I would say you can consider that wish fulfilled." Ren said.

"Thank you very much!" Naruto bowed as grandiosely as he could while sitting cross legged on his bed.

"Truly our leader is a challenge for us all." Ren added. Naruto grasped his heart like he'd been stabbed.

"You wound me!"

"If only, Invincible Boy." Nora snarked.

"Hey!" Naruto complained, clearly offended. "Don't put me in the same category as The Goddess Of Getting Her Ass Handed To Her!"

A pillow shot through the air and smashed the side of Naruto's face, knocking him off his bed.

"With all the victories I've experienced it truly amazes that this might be my favorite. Maybe I'll talk about it in my next interview." Pyrrha quipped as Nora cheered in rowdy celebration. Ren wore a smirk that was just a little too satisfied for Naruto's liking.

"I guess our resident loser-goddess has to accept hitting me with a pillow because she can't do it in combat." Naruto mocked his partner. Pyrrha searched for another salvo, causing Naruto to duck behind his bed as he prepared for trench warfare. The second shot brushed the hairs of his head as he remained ducked in cover. "Don't attack me for speaking the truth Goddess of Defeat!"

Nora volunteered her own pillow for the cause as she hefted it to Pyrrha. The Spartan fired her ammo like one would shoot a basketball, circumventing Naruto's barricade defenses as it came down on him from above. The shot was good, but bounced harmlessly off of nothing, missing Naruto completely.

"No semblances in the room." Ren firmly chastised their leader, receiving some muted grumbling about usurpation and ganging up for his efforts. "On the note of victory and defeat — we really should organize a training session together. Missions should be coming up in the next few weeks."

"Yeah Naruto! What gives?!" Nora griped. "You train frickin Cardin's team all the time!"

"They need more help than I can give." Naruto chuckled. "You guys will be with me on whatever mission we get, so I know you'll be safe. Those dumbasses are more likely to jump into the mouth of an ursa than to flank it." Nora giggled at that. "Just been trying to make sure those idiots make it home from their first mission. If RWBY only had us to compare to they'd be depressed within a week."

"They're a strong and talented team." Pyrrha chastised him as well.

Naruto rolled his eyes. "They can handle B rank missions at best. If Ozpin doesn't send us on at least an A rank mission I'll be shocked." Naruto paused for a second to think. "And then if that A doesn't become an SS through some bullshit or another I'll be even more shocked."

"You think we'll be sent on an A rank mission?" Ren asked, more curious than anything.

"I could do a B rank by myself." Naruto didn't brag, but stated it more as a casual fact. "I'm sure he doesn't want to give us something too easy. So we can probably expect an A rank."

"Then what was the whole 'it'll become SS' stuff you were talking about?" Nora asked.

"That's just a personal thing." Naruto sighed. "I don't think I'm capable of going on a team mission that goes to plan. My first real mission was a C rank and ended up being S or SS when I was twelve. My luck since then hasn't exactly been super as far as mission difficulties behaving themselves goes. I swear I'm cursed."

Pyrrha stifled a giggle. "Ren is right. We really should try and get some team practice in. At the very least we should join in on CRDL's training. It would be easier for you than working two separate team sessions."

Naruto scratched his head at that, acknowledging they had a point. "Sure. If you want to join in with CRDL it's your funeral. Be warned, once you start a session you don't get to stop until it's over."

As ominous as that should have sounded Pyrrha was too excited to pay it much heed. "Really?! You'll train with us?!"

"Kami, you make it sound like we've never tr-" Naruto strategically stopped talking as Nora and Pyrrha wore expressions that threatened death if he dared to finish that sentence. It was definitely strategic and not because he — an immortal juggernaut of chakra and jutsu — was scared by the threatening eyes of seventeen year old girls.

"We have, in fact, never trained together." Ren replied to Naruto's unfinished complaint. Naruto was convinced the act was to throw him further under the bus as the two women's gazes hardened upon his saying so.

"Really? Are you sure we've nev- H-how about tomorrow morning?" Naruto stammered under the assault of feminine fury bursting forth from the two pairs of eyes. Each was putting forth their best effort to gun him down.

"Tomorrow would work perfectly!" Pyrrha beamed at him, Nora joining in immediately as well. Naruto breathed a sigh of relief at the positive mood swing. Sakura had done something to his genetic code that just made him freeze up when faced with a glowering woman. Doubling that effect via both his female teammates wasn't good for his health.

"Great… just great." Naruto sighed. "Bring your weapons, full field gear, and some water. It's a pretty intense regiment and I don't want you dehydrating."

Pyrrha nodded with childish exuberance one might have expected from Ruby when she spoke of weapons. Ren gave a contented smile to their leader while Nora bounced on her bed in celebration. Their leader looked upon them like a father who had appeased his children before he laughed.

"I don't think you know what you've gotten yourselves into." Naruto muttered quietly.

* * *

They hadn't known what they'd gotten themselves into last night. That fact seemed completely irrefutable at this point.

The warning signs had been there, but had gone unequivocally unheeded. NVR had arrived fifteen minutes early as a group of three, yet they were still later to arrive than CRDL. The male team was stretching with a thorough diligence that would have seemed completely out of place when they'd first started at Beacon. Nowadays it seemed a bit more natural as CRDL had grown into a fine team of young huntsmen. Ren had been surprised to see that their newfound diligence extended to their warm-ups. He had not been the only member of his team to think so either.

The second indicator was when they went to set down their water bottles around the outskirts of the track. Instead of finding similar receptacles belonging to the other team they'd found eight one-gallon milk containers that had been thoroughly washed and filled with water. At the time they'd found that to be excessive for a simple training session.

They didn't now.

Ren didn't know what they'd been thinking. CRDL had been on this workout for around a month. Surely they knew better than they did what would be required. To assume that two gallons each was overkill seemed absolutely asinine at this point.

Ren lay in a collapsed heap as he tried in vain to pour out the lingering vestiges of liquid clinging to his water bottle. This was in no way what Ren had expected when their leader had said they'd be training. When Naruto arrived he'd asked if they were all warmed up and ready to go. A universal response in the affirmative was all that was needed before Naruto twisted his hand on his stomach, the sand creature appearing on the ground before it merrily rolled over to a pit of sand.

Naruto explained they were supposed to do laps at a 'decent pace' until he told them to stop. A bit of pre-workout running was typical of a training session. The activity helped warm your muscles up in a way that stretching didn't while also helping to get the blood flowing. It had quickly become apparent that that line of thought was not the one their leader had chosen.

The next half hour felt like an aeon as the seven of them had ran laden with weights of sand so large they were just shy of debilitating. All of the NVR members struggled to move forward with the weight they had been given. Pyrrha was clearly delighted with the raw simplicity of a physical challenge as she forced her feet forward one step after another. The fact that Nora had been given the most weight on the team did little to deter her. Of the NVR members she had maintained the fastest pace while her extreme stamina managed to keep her going. Despite his childhood friend's usually inexhaustible energy she was beginning to show signs of fatigue.

Ren didn't remain alone for long. Soon Russel Thrush was called to halt as well. The mohawked student walked haggardly towards Ren and plopped himself down on the grass directly adjacent. Russel looked pretty tired, but Ren felt worse than Russel looked.

"You look like shit." Russel confirmed Ren's suspicions. Its delivery was more that of gallows humor than an actual insult so Ren took it as the friendly gesture it was.

"I would love to say I feel any differently than I look…"

"But you feel even worse. I get ya." Russel laughed. "If it makes you feel better I looked even shittier than you our first time."

Surprisingly it did make Ren feel better. "Really? You're handling it much better than I am now."

Russel shrugged casually. "Doing this every other day and training besides makes it pretty easy to get used to. Not like it gets any easier though."

"You look more muscles than when you first enlisted in Beacon. I find it hard to believe you haven't grown any stronger."

"And you'd be stupid as hell if you did." Russel agreed. "I've gotten stronger, it just doesn't help. The bastard adjusts your weight so everyone is struggling about the same at all times. Doesn't get any easier and I never said it did. You just get used to it is all."

"I believe it to be a rather metaphorical way of training." Dove's eloquence was slightly marred by his lungs and their involuntary wheezing. It appeared Dove Bronzewing was also out of steam as he sat next to the two of them.

"Metaphorical? That's an interesting way to view physical conditioning." Ren remarked.

"I find it appropriate." Dove smile was a bit pained in light of the physical exertion he had just gone through. "We grow into our roles as huntsmen through the passing of time, but only if we put forth the effort to struggle forward. As our capacity to bear the weighty responsibilities of being a huntsmen grows so too does the weight we are given. Naruto has done his best to make sure the strain of this exercise has been unchanging since our first day. In that way the only variable in what makes this easier to bear is ourselves."

Russel nodded. "You got a point there, Dove. I'm just as tired as the first day we did this shit, but I just don't care as much anymore. Like the first day I thought I was gonna die and now I'm just used to it."

"Previously you probably weren't used to such a workout." Ren reasoned. "Your body rejected the harsh treatment because it wasn't accustomed to it."

"Much like the burdens of being a huntsman. There is much about this life that I hadn't considered before choosing it as my path." Dove admitted with a sigh of self-admonishment. "I was gifted in the way of the sword in no small part due to the methods by which I was raised. The aptitude that was forced upon me in the name of Bronzewing was so much so that I am nearly as apt in the way of the blade as your leader's partner."

Ren eyed him skeptically at that. Believing a member of CRDL to be Pyrrha's equal was dubious even if he took a large leap of faith. Despite her repeated losses to their leader she was still the second strongest in their year with a bullet. Sensing his disbelief Dove elaborated on his claim. "That isn't to say I could beat her in open combat, for I could not. However, if the two of us were to be of similar physical capacity and desire I do not believe I would be her inferior in martial combat. As it stands she has sufficiently more stamina than I and could easily outlast me."

Ren reflected on Dove's words as he watched the four remaining people walk around the track. He'd long since accepted that he couldn't keep up with Nora in terms of stamina. Pyrrha was a championship fighter who was essentially undefeated except for one anomaly, thus he hadn't worried greatly about being bested by her either. Said anomaly was, of course, their leader. The very idea that Naruto could be bested was preposterous to Ren. Naruto wasn't doing laps with them, but he had no doubt the blond would be practically skipping whereas the rest of them could barely drudge forward.

Cardin Winchester had always been a large man, but recently he had become even more so. No doubt due to workouts such as this Cardin's body had begun to remove the fat from his body as it attempted to optimize him for peak physical performance on a cellular level. However it was not just those four he had fallen behind, but Dove, Russel, and most surprisingly to him Sky.

Of all the CRDL members Sky had always struck Ren as the quiet one. It wasn't like Ren's own silence — a quiet in which one found serenity, but rather one of nervousness or fear. Sky was most certainly the weakest member of his team… on any of the three teams actually. Despite that the blue haired boy forced himself forward at a brusque walk despite the obvious strain it put on his body.

Was Dove right? If Naruto was adjusting their burdens to be equally cumbersome to each of them then the people who remained were not those in the best of conditions, but those with the strongest of wills. Ren had no doubt that he was stronger than each of the CRDL members — potentially barring Cardin — in a fight. He was also sure that Sky and Russel were his physical inferiors in conditioning. If Dove was right his dropping out first said nothing of his conditioning, but of his will.

Had Naruto seen defeat in Ren's eyes? Had he seen the desire to give up that Ren had not meant to display? By his own eyes Ren believed that Russel was carrying an equal or greater burden of sand than his own, but Ren also believed himself to be Russel's superior.

Was his will that weak?

When Ren looked past the white lies he told himself — the rationalizations of why keeping up with his monstrous team was impossible — he was forced to address a truth that his mind had concealed from his conscious self.

He had become accustomed to mediocrity.

Trying to imagine himself competing with Naruto was nothing short of insanity. Ren was confident that their leader was the strongest huntsman in Remnant despite being a student. Then he'd convinced himself competition with Pyrrha was functionally just as impossible. This entire time Ren had been so consumed with the threat Naruto could be that he'd allowed himself to designate competing with the two of them as futile.

 _Oh how stealthily the malaise of complacency has crept upon me._ Ren thought, more irritated with himself than he'd been in years. A huntsman was one who grew, one who strived to take ever more burden off the world and shoulder it himself. To become people that could prevent the tragedy that had befallen their home… that was the reason both Nora and himself had chosen the path they had.

Did he believe he was capable of fighting that monstrous grimm? No, he did not. So why had he accepted this stagnation so readily, so obviously? He hadn't even been aware he had done so, but now it was as clear as day that he'd chosen not to think about this because it made his life easier to deal with. A willing ignorance was what he'd chosen. So long as no one addressed it he had subconsciously been perfectly willing to ignore it. The point of consciousness, the point of one's sense of self was to prevent such straying from one's path. Why had his failed him?

 _It was too difficult._ A dark voice whispered in his mind. _The two of them were so far above the two of us that is was ridiculous to even try. What could we accomplish with all our effort that they could not with little of theirs?_

So what? Was that it? His teammates, his fledgling friends were more talented than he was so his effort had no meaning? Because they were better now than he might hope to be that meant he should give up?

 _No!_ Ren raged against the constraints of his own insecurity and self doubt. _They are them and I am me. Just because I might never be the best does not mean a task is not worth the entirety of my effort! I've never believed anything else!_

So why had he allowed himself to stagnate? Why was he still the same while CRDL moved in leaps and bounds forward? The answer had already been stated.

 _I felt so insignificant compared to Naruto and Pyrrha._ That was the truth. _I would have to work two- three- maybe even four times as hard to move as far as they would to achieve the same result. I allowed myself to become discouraged by the aptitude they possessed that I did not._

It wasn't fair that they could achieve so easily what required himself and many others so much effort to do! At least that was Ren's gut reaction. In reality he had no idea what made them the way they were. Maybe Pyrrha was the product of superior teaching, but maybe she was the product of superior effort. Possibly much like a well built machine she was able to quickly produce results because of the base work she had laid as a child. The effort Ren now had to go through was potentially something she had already given throughout her life. He just had no way of knowing.

He did know that the price Naruto had paid for his power was steep. The man was damaged, broken even. Ren had lost his family, his home, everything but Nora and even he couldn't imagine what had forged their leader into the man he was. He had no doubt that Naruto had sacrificed much to obtain what he had. No doubt the man had burned his candle at both ends to achieve such immense power as quickly as he had. How hard had Naruto trained as a child compared to how hard Ren had done so himself?

Even if innate talent was the issue, did it matter? Even if someone else was genetically predisposed towards something he wanted to do that was no reason to abandon his goal. It was all so obvious that he cursed himself for not noticing it before. It was all so similar that he felt like he'd revisited the same thought over and over again just after realizing it.

"I think…" Ren spoke without even realizing it. "I think I'll try harder next time."

"Duh?" Russel looked at him like he'd said the most obvious thing in the world. "If we aren't gonna try harder next time then what the fuck are we even doing?"

Ren laughed. Not a chortle, not a chuckle, but a full blown laughed that racked his entire body with vibration. It was melodious to the ears that heard it and cleansing to his very own soul. It was laughter that drove back his inner darkness and self-doubt as he faced his future with clarity and determination that had not been there prior.

So what if his leader was superhuman? So what if Pyrrha was a famed champion? So what if Nora was a limitless font of energy? He was Lie Ren. The path to his own success was not through comparing himself to others, but through refusing to remain the same man he had been the day prior. The path to his future would be paved by his own efforts, not that of those around him.

 _Truly…_ Ren thought to himself mirthfully. _What the fuck have I been doing indeed?_

* * *

Often one makes a mental checklist to make sure they've done everything they needed to. A diligent person would then double-check as a matter of caution. If something was sufficiently important one might on occasion triple-check their aforementioned list to be absolutely certain that everything had been accomplished. Whatever number of passes Velvet had done through her own had long since passed anything as reasonable as a triple-check and had since descended into total madness.

 _Okay!_ The amorous girl psyched herself up. _Now is the time to pull ahead! Everything is primed and ready for today. Coco helped me pick out my outfit, I've prepared talking points, we'll take a detour on the way back to get something to eat and-_

"Hey Velvet!" A familiar voice called out from behind her. Velvet turned on her heels faster than she would have if she'd thought a beowolf was on her six. "Whoa, you look amazing!"

And just like that any and all productive thoughts vanished out of her mind without a trace. Any thoughts that had filled the void were nowhere near as productive and had her wearing what was surely an almost creepily pleased smile. Her eyes lidded as a small chibi version of herself danced in joyous victory in her mind.

"-lvet. Velvet!" Naruto's voice roused her from her daydreams.

"Huh? Oh y-yes, thank you for saying that. I put in a little extra effort today." Velvet giggled nervously.

A little may have been understating things just a skosh. Coco had agreed to help her plan for the day, but only on certain conditions. After being paraded around Vale by her partner for the better part of the morning and being forced to try on countless morally dubious outfits as Coco's payment her partner finally selected an outfit for her. None of the previous outfits had been for anything other than Coco's amusement, something she received plenty of when Velvet had panicked horribly after she'd started taking pictures of her in shorts so short the pockets hung out of them!

In no more than five minutes the beret wearing fashionista had selected a drilled white sundress, matching heels and a sunhat. As far as Coco Adel was concerned the outfit was mercifully simple. Unsurprisingly Velvet's leader promptly snatched the sunhat from her as soon as the purchase was made and modified it expertly so her rabbit ears would comfortably poke through. Velvet wasn't exactly comfortable with how much of her skin was showing, but neither was she completely against it.

Hey, if it worked it worked! And if Naruto's opening statement was anything to go by it had most definitely worked.

"I can tell. I'll probably have to beat off a few guys who will try to make a pass at you!" The blond grinned. Velvet could only giggle like a giddy schoolgirl as her brain failed to put forth any of the numerous conversation topics she had rehearsed a billion-and-a-half times.

 _Pull yourself together! There is no reason to get this nervous. He's my junior for god's sake!_

"Are you ready to get going?" She asked pointlessly. He was here, she was here, why wouldn't he be ready?!

"Yeah, but we got a few minutes before the next bullhead to Vale shows up."

Velvet beamed radiantly at him as her chibi-self ran in circles screaming. Huntsmen didn't just get a bullhead to Vale the instant they wanted unless it was for a mission. As much as she considered herself to be on a mission Velvet doubted her current affair would qualify as such in the headmaster's eyes.

So the two of them took to the waiting bench as the lone pair waiting for a ride to Vale. Now would have been the perfect time for any of the things she had thought about prior to fill the void of silence. It turned out her embarrassment was about to become her windfall.

"This is nice." Naruto breathed deeply before exhaling, exhaustion palpable on his breath.

"Absolutely! … but what exactly is nice?"

Naruto laughed. "I've been training CRDL and my own team for the past three hours. It's relaxing to spend time with someone outside of being a leader and not in a huge group for a change. I don't necessarily mind either," Naruto quickly added. "It's just relaxing to be able to drop the leader bit for awhile."

Velvet thanked whatever gods, spirits or whatever the hell else presided mercifully over her life as her shyness actually paid dividends!

"I've heard you're like a different person when you lead." Naruto's expression darkened and Velvet immediately tried to recover. "I've heard that it can be exhausting is all. They say a lot of customer service workers burn out trying to be someone they're not. Is it like that for you?"

Naruto nodded as he massaged his eyelids. "I was never good at being a leader. I managed to get myself stuck in a situation where I pretty much had no choice but to. That's where I learned pretty much everything I'm doing now, more or less at least. Feels like I'm wearing a mask the whole time I do it."

"Well you know I'm here for you if you ever need a hand taking off the mask." Velvet smiled broadly.

"Don't worry about it. I always manage to find a way through. I shouldn't need to bother you with anything like that. Just gotta give it the stiff upper lip."

 _No! Stupid language! Why are you so complicated?!_ Velvet whined internally. She shouldn't have used the word need! Need implied that he should only call on her when it was necessary. That wasn't what she wanted at all!

"No! I want you to call me whenever you're feeling down! You're my friend and I want to be there for you whenever I can be." She vomited out without thinking. She had to shackle her hands to the bench with her fingers to prevent them from rushing up to cover her mouth after the verbal diarrhea she had just spewed. Why did nothing ever go to plan?!

Naruto eyed her with a complicated expression and Velvet just knew she'd done it. "Thanks Velvet, that means a lot."

His hand came to rest atop her head, right behind her bunny ears as he lightly mussed her hair. Velvet's initial reaction was alarm, an uncertainty over what what going on. That sense of alertness quickly gave way to relaxed glee as she lightly jutted her head into his hand to increase the pressure just a little bit more. Girls were supposed to hate it when a guy messed with her hair as a general rule, yet Velvet couldn't figure out why in that moment. The warmth of his hand was soothing as it stroked her hair just roughly enough to scratch some sort of primal itch she couldn't quite put into words.

A soft mewing noise escaped her lips that would have been more appropriate coming from Blake than herself. Naruto withdrew his hand immediately. "Sorry about that. I kind of got carried away."

 _Noooooo! Hand, come back! Pet me more!_ "It's fine. I meant what I said though. I don't want you to tough everything out by yourself. All of us are your friends and you need to learn to rely on us a little more."

Naruto's gaze unfocused as he looked wistfully to the sky. "I don't even remember what leaving things to other people feels like anymore. I left my only friends behind when I came here… and I miss them so much every day. I would never be able to replace a single one of them even if I tried."

The breeze blew calmly through the grass on the uncharacteristically sunny autumn day. There was a quiet born of remembrance and grief that settled over their conversation. It was a placid peace more than a solemn sadness. A way of remembering that recognized the pain he'd been through without any idea of how to move forward, yet also with no intention of giving up. The grief was there, but less as a weighing anchor and more as a soft reminder.

"Maybe the problem is that you think you need to try."

"What?" Naruto responded with confusion. Velvet looked towards her feet as she swayed her legs back and forth on the bench.

"I don't think you'll ever replace the friends you have and neither do you. I think the difference is that you believe making room for new friends here means pushing the old ones out of your heart." She shook her head with a small smile. "You don't need to forget your old friends so you can have new ones. You need to be willing to try and let new friends into that place in your heart where you allowed your old ones. Trust me, you'll find you have space enough for all the people you want to call friends without giving any up."

It was a delayed reaction from Naruto. Five or six seconds of a blank face that stretched into a time hat felt much longer than that for Velvet. Yet beyond her wildest hopes a smile broke across his face. It wasn't a smile of pride or mischief, nor was it one of laughter. Relief seemed to wash over Naruto like a waterfall as his bright blue eyes shimmered like pools of clear water.

"Maybe." Naruto admitted. It wasn't some large heartfelt speech Velvet received in reply. Instead she received merely a single word. Still, in that moment it felt like that one word carried more weight than all those before it. Intentionally or not it was like she had chiseled one chip off of the layers of jade that seized Naruto's heart.

The day wasn't going to plan, but maybe it'd go even better.

* * *

 _ **And that's all for chapter 22! In a character driven story like this I've got a lot of ground to cover between a lot of characters. The addition of CRDL has really taken up a lot more time than I'd originally intended, but I'm pleased with how I've fleshed them out. Expect some character building in between the big canon events of RWBY moving forward.**_

 _ **With that being said let's move on to the teaser for what is potentially my next story. I have the premise of the piece fleshed out and ready to go if it does manage to get the necessary support. All I need is to be told whether or not it is something you lot would be interested in via Pa+reon. Without further adieu I present to you the teaser.**_

* * *

 **Teaser**

 **Fox and the Cub**

Ozpin was a bit intrigued by what was to be his next appointment. The nature of said appointment was a matter both simple and complicated. Glynda had long since hounded him over the nature of their bare-bones staffing at Beacon. To be frank it was hard to refute her point as it was more valid than it had any right to be. New staff was most certainly necessary, yet finding the right person for the job had proven difficult.

To teach students who were huntsmen one first had to be a huntsman themself. It may have seemed ridiculous to require your teacher of world history to be able to fell an army of grimm, but there was wisdom behind the insanity as oft there was. Some of the more… assertive students would find it difficult to subjugate themselves to the authority of one weaker than them. It was tragic the number of applicants he'd been forced to deny on that logic alone over the many years of his tenure as headmaster.

There were other reasons of course. Having a teacher who was huntsman trained allowed them to chaperone missions for the first years. With such a small quantity of available help Ozpin had often been forced to give out missions far below the difficulty he would have liked to. With a seasoned huntsman at the helm he could thrust more dangerous missions upon the younger teams. Missions that were frankly essential to prepare them for dangerous work that lie ahead in their careers.

The applicant claimed to be sufficiently trained as a huntsman to qualify for a position. He referenced extensive field work and leadership experience in his résumé to the point that it almost begged disbelief on the reader's end. Many of the questions the applicant had answered on the application provoked a very similar response.

Q: What is the value of your aura as determined by the Atlesian Aura Standard?

A: I don't know. The tool exploded when I tried to turn it on.

Q: What experience do you have working with children?

A: I've raised my two kids and helped with several grandchildren. I have also led teams of huntsmen-in-training in multiple field operations as well as an educational capacity.

Q: Is there any disqualifying material you are legally or morally obligated to disclose? If so please name it.

A: I'm much stronger than anyone I've met here. Could level Vale before brunch if I wanted to. Then again if I did that where would I get brunch?

The applicants answers were so blasé that Ozpin was professionally obligated to throw it into the waste bin where it properly belonged. Any other headmaster or employer certainly would have done so. There was one question that had overturned the heavily lopsided scale by itself. Funnily enough it was what should have been the most innocuous of questions.

Q: What is your age?

A: Much like yours, Ozpin.

The pithy answer would not have been particularly out of place had the applicant been an older man in his late fifties or early sixties. After all, the applicant had been rather witty, or rather unprofessional in his application up to that point. However, the man in question had attached a photograph of himself. The man in the picture was a striking blond who appeared to either be in his late twenties or early thirties. Comparing the age of that man to Ozpin's own was rather ridiculous on the surface.

The headmaster did not find it so.

A familiar rapping of a singular nuckle could be heard from the doorway to his office. "Please, do come in." Ozpin called out.

The door gave way to a disgruntled Goodwitch. The blonde held open the door and gestured to some hidden figure outside of Ozpin's own view to enter. At that point another blond entered the room. A blond that perfectly matched the picture attached to the application he'd once more been perusing.

The blond was tall, but not unduly so. No more than six feet to be sure, potentially even shorter. He was a striking figure who had a presence of venerated leadership that far surpassed his younger appearance. He wore an orange shirt with black stripes accompanied by a similar pair of black pants made of a flexible material that looked designed for combat. Over his shoulders was a white and red cloak that billowed behind him as he walked. Overall it wouldn't be wrong to say the blond looked very impressive, overwhelming in a sense. The most bizarre thing about him was the orange fox that had draped itself comfortably over his shoulders. Its eyes were the color of blood.

Ozpin's attention returned to an irate Goodwitch as she begrudgingly closed the door behind her as she exited the office. He'd requested that he interview this applicant alone, something that she'd protested quite strongly. There were some games of chess that were easier to play without the accompaniment of others. As of yet he had no idea what kind of game the blond wished to play with him, but Ozpin wanted to be nimble in his opening moves.

"Mr. Uzumaki? Did I pronounce that right?"

The blond nodded as he took the seat Ozpin had gestured him towards. "Impressively so. There aren't many people around here that manage to get it right on the first attempt."

"A lifetime of practice I assure you." Ozpin chortled amicably. "One can only be in education for so long before every type of name has flitted across their desk at one point or another."

"Lifetimes of practice most certainly have their merit." Uzumaki agreed.

The statement was absent the particular of the word 'a' and the presupposed 'lifetime' had instead been made plural. Indeed it was those very lifetimes of experience that kept Ozpin's face from reacting to Uzumaki's words.

"When you've been in teaching as long as I have it really does begin to feel like many lifetimes worth of experience."

"I'm sure." Uzumaki nodded. "That combined with the centuries you've lived has probably given you more experience than most. By my gauge I'm actually fairly young comparatively."

"Oh?" Ozpin asked without answering. "It goes without saying a man as young as yourself would not match my weathered age."

"Truly. It also would go without saying that a mere three-hundred-and-so years would pale in comparison to the millennia your soul has weathered."

That caused Ozpin to tense. "And what would you be talking about, Mr. Uzumaki?"

The blond sighed in obvious exhaustion. "To be frank with you I don't really enjoy games of words. Though we seem to be of different types can we speak plainly, one immortal to another?"

Ozpin couldn't help but chuckle at that. "If I was immortal I'd very much choose to have a body like yours. I don't think I'd choose to grow old and feeble." Uzumaki groaned in response.

"You don't because it isn't your body that is immortal, but your soul." Uzumaki's eyes were calm and unmoving. "And to be frank with you I doubt even that is true. Of the two auras in your body there is one that is clearly fading. Techniques that transfer oneself from body to body will tear a soul to ribbons given enough time."

Ozpin did not get shocked into silence often. He couldn't remember it happening in decades or more. Yet here he'd found himself eating his own tongue as the man before him spouted the most protected of secrets like they they were public domain.

"What makes you so sure of what you speak? Should I be viewing you as an adversary? Should I be viewing you as one of her people?"

Uzumaki openly barked laughter at that. "I assume you mean the only other immortal I've managed to find on Remnant? I can assure you that I have no desire to destroy this world nor harm its inhabitants. From what limited information I've gathered about her that would seem to leave me at odds with her goals."

Ozpin stared him down coldly. "I'm afraid that isn't exactly something I can trust."

It is commonly known that panic is a natural response that an animal feels before its predator. It is the body's means by which it conveys that one need do something about their current predicament or face certain death. What is less commonly known is what happens when prey is placed before an apex predator so overwhelming that it can do nothing. Such were the feelings of Ozpin as Uzumaki's aura turned golden around him, cloaking him in what appeared to be flames of pure energy.

"Trust this then; if I had ill intentions for you or anyone here there would be nothing that can be done to stop me." Uzumaki assured him. Ozpin knew magic more than anyone else in Remnant, but even at his fullest of strengths he had paled compared to the man before him. Uzumaki's was a magic that could tear the very foundation of Remnant asunder upon nothing more than a whim. With no more than a gesture of Uzumaki's hand the headmaster found himself enveloped in the same golden flames that had enveloped the blond.

The sensation was unbelievable.

Magic like none he'd ever felt coursed through his body and filled it with life. His souls danced to the tune of Uzumaki's own as power long since forgotten crackled to life at his fingertips. The magic he had given out not only returned once more, but available in quantities greater than he'd ever imagined. Then as swiftly as it arrived it disappeared along with Uzumaki's own.

"That… you…" Ozpin spluttered unceremoniously. Once more he found himself speechless before Uzumaki. Ozpin's mind unable to comprehend the magnitude of what was being laid before him on what should have been a simple autumn day. "You could kill Salem."

"Assuming that is the other immortal, yes I could."

"You could save Remnant from her."

"It would not be difficult, no."

"Then the world would finally kn-"

"Trust me when I say this, Headmaster." Naruto interrupted with a tone of grave import. "To replace a demon of incredible strength with a benevolent god of insurmountable strength would fail to serve your people. If that argument doesn't convince you then let me be clear."

"I will never allow myself to be seen as a god again."

Ozpin was floored. Even with his many, many centuries of experience he found it difficult to remain calm. Before him was obviously the answer to Remnant's woes, but he refused to be as such. A deep breath was required to calm himself down. Another was taken to put himself into Uzumaki's shoes. A third was necessary to understand his position.

"How vast are the reaches of your magic?" Ozpin asked as his calm returned to him.

"I have the destructive force necessary to reduce this world to rubble. I have near absolute authority over life and death. I can clone myself into an army and teleport thousands of miles in an instant. Of the hundreds of things I am capable of those are just the first that come to mind. Any one of the things I can do deserves more fear than this Salem could ever hope to command. I will not end your war for you…"

"But?" Ozpin suggested hopefully.

A smile from Uzumaki answered him. "But I am willing to help you and yours sharpen their fangs for the fight to come. In addition my presence here will ensure this school's safety against all that would threaten it, leaving you free to maneuver as you see fit."

A bold promise, but one Ozpin was sure that Uzumaki could keep after seeing the magic he commanded. His power went far beyond that of aura and into the realm of magic that Ozpin too had once had access to, just on a far greater scale than he'd ever imagined possible. It was a gift horse that was quite hard to look in the mouth. Especially so when Ozpin considered the truth behind the statement that if Uzumaki meant him ill, then ill would surely befall him.

Despite that it was still Ozpin's duty to do so. "All of that given in exchange for a position as a professor? I dare say you've negotiated yourself quite a poor deal Mr. Uzumaki. What would you stand to gain for doing so?'

The blond sighed as he laced his hands behind his head. His eyes moved off of Ozpin and stared instead through the windows behind him. "I've lived long enough to see my wife pass, my children pass, my grandchildren pass, and only then to bury my great-grandchildren before I decided to live in solitude. I've lived long enough to do everything I'd wished to in life and more. I'm so old that my way of life is nothing but a relic of a past long since forgotten. What I hope to gain from teaching here is a purpose. I could just accept the meaninglessness of existence, but I suppose I've never been the type. For the first time in awhile I felt the motivation to create meaning again."

"So you came to Beacon?"

"So I came to Beacon." Uzumaki agreed. "I can't promise how long I will remain here, nor can I say I will find the purpose I'm seeking. What I can say is that as long as I am present the students, staff, and guests at this school need not fear for their safety. While I refuse to be an instrument of war I just as firmly refuse to let those under my protection pass."

And with that said there was nothing more to talk about. Obviously there were thousands if not tens of thousands of topics that Ozpin could dive into with Uzumaki, but none that pertained to their current topic. This was still technically an interview after all.

"I do believe that I would be delighted to offer you employment at Beacon Academy Mr. Uzumaki. Were there any terms you wished to discuss?"

A playful grin plied at the corners of the blond's mouth. Uzumaki had only needed rely on the headmaster to make his best move at every given turn to guarantee the results that he'd wanted. That being said it wasn't like Ozpin could willingly make a wrong move just to spite him. Sometimes the cheese placed upon the trap was worth risking it snapping on your neck.

"Other than what I've already said I have only two." Uzumaki held up a solitary finger. "Firstly I will teach an advanced combat course of handpicked students. I find it difficult to work with those who don't take their job as protectors seriously."

Ozpin nodded his agreement. As far as what Mr. Uzumaki could demand it was an incredibly tame request.

A second finger rose. "And two; I met someone who doesn't quite have the qualifications one might expect as necessary to join Beacon, but I would like you to enroll him nonetheless."

A trickier request, but still a bargain for what Ozpin was promised to receive in return. This day had turned into a humbling experience for the immortal headmaster. A reminder that sometimes the honey appeared too sweet to be concerned with the stinger that loomed.

"I will have it done. Is the man in question your protégé?"

Uzumaki laughed once more, but this time he was clearly amused. "I helped him for a short while in my travels, but nothing quite so formal as to make him my student." A smile tugged at his lips as he spoke once more.

"I suppose you could say he's just a small cub I found. One that hopes to someday be a lion."


	24. A Trojan Horse

**_Greetings and salutations! Welcome to chapter 23 of OFNT! Believe it or not I finally don't have much to say in an AN. Amazing! I've started to write the Velvet oneshot for my patrons and so far it's going pretty well. I'm a lot less rushed because I didn't hard commit to a time like I did with the Pyrrha one. So for my patrons you should have access to Fake it 'Til You Make it sometime in the next week or two._**

 ** _Other than that the only real news I have is about the next chapter. We'll be focusing on red and white for chapter twenty-four, with some Cinder sprinkled in for good measure. I'm content with NNVR after this chapter and can finally start branching outwards while feeling like I have a good solid base to return to in the future._**

 ** _For all those who wish to support me, want access to the Velvet oneshot, or wish to see Fox and the Cub become a story please visit my pa+reon at _****_p a treon . com (slash) Faulkner. Without further adieu I present to you Chapter Twenty-Three of An Old Fox's New Trick_**

* * *

 **Chapter 23**

 **A Trojan Horse**

Naruto found a special type of catharsis in solving a problem that had plagued him for a time. He'd never been one to let problems fester, even in his youth. As he'd grown older and more powerful the number of issues that he'd encounter dwindled lower and lower. In a way having a problem of his own (as opposed to another's) that he hadn't been able to solve in an instant had been a welcome change of pace.

The issue of replenishing his supply of more disposable weaponry had been a tricky one. Most of the people he'd met used weapons very dissimilar to the ones he was used to. Even Myrtenaster — sword though it was —was a far cry from the blades he would find back home. It was to the point where he wondered if he should even refer to it as a blade. The only part of it that could do anything was its pointy tip!

Blake's weapon was far too complicated for Naruto's taste, but it did fill him with hope. The kusarigama portion of one of its far too many modes was something he'd seen regularly enough in the Elemental Nations. There were things from his world that seemed to trickle to this one through some means or another. Did the fact that they had some similar weaponry just mean that humankind gravitated towards certain kinds of weapons? That was possible. In a similar fashion, Remnant had more advanced technologies than they'd had, yet the Elemental Nations had begun to develop their technology to accomplish similar feats as they had here.

That was all well and good. Blades being an efficient way to cut across made enough sense. There were only so many ways you could effectively turn metal into weaponry, after all, there was bound to be some crossover. What didn't make anywhere near as much sense was the language. He'd spoken in his native tongue when he first arrived and Blake had perfectly translated a few phrases for him. Technically across an infinite number of universes it should be statistically probable that one had made a language near identical to his own. Considering the fact that Sasuke only had so much time to vet so many dimensions for his exile… well, it didn't seem likely that this universe happened to roll the one and however many billion chance dice for the language lottery.

It was a tangential thought, but it all stemmed from their meeting with the smith Velvet had recommended. The smith was more mountain than man if you were to go by size alone. His faunus trait was readily presented in the form of two curled horns, ram horns to be precise. The smith fittingly asked to be referred to as Smith, though it was ambiguous if that was his name or title. His manner of speech had been short and clipped, but not in the way a moody Weiss might have been. It was more like the man didn't appreciate spending much time choosing words to explain his intent. The fewest words, the simplest way to get his point across was clearly Smith's idea of the best. Naruto could appreciate that, especially having been forced to play politics back home.

What Naruto appreciated even more was Smith's like-minded approach to his work. The stone-faced blacksmith had almost taken on an expression when Naruto described his need for nothing but simple smithed tools. No explosive ammo, no transforming weapons, no dust, nothing. All he wanted from Smith was a truckload of kunai of good make and keen edge. It was a request that in all appearances was right up the alley of the ram faunus. Naruto assumed that appearance matched reality, but it was just that — an assumption — as Smith had shown no visible reaction.

On top of his custom order, Naruto found his interest peaked by the standing inventory of the smithy. The money he had made off the crook prior to the docks wasn't infinite, but he was inclined to splurge a little bit for the realization of an idea he'd been tossing around. If Smith was confused by the two unique additional items Naruto added to his purchase no one would have been able to tell. The man could have been a professional card player with the poker face he had.

With Velvet's order placed alongside his own Naruto was prepared to head straight towards the shuttle back to Beacon. As anyone other than the dense blond may have expected Velvet wasn't on board with that plan. Somehow Naruto managed to lose the debate about going to a coffee shop when he neither wanted nor enjoyed the beverage. To be more precise there wasn't even an argument; Velvet asked if he wanted to get some coffee with her at a place she liked, Naruto said he didn't like coffee, Velvet's ears dropped as her face fell, Naruto immediately confessed he could really use a coffee, Velvet perked up and beamed at him.

He still completely and totally blamed Sakura for his weakness with women.

So they'd gotten coffee. The conversation was more than small talk, but nothing too serious either. For Naruto, it was honestly perfect. He didn't want to talk about anything too serious, but he loathed small talk about nothing of interest. He'd been chatted up by enough politicians and businessmen who occupied both polar ends of the spectrum to last himself the rest of his immeasurable lifetime.

As they were preparing to leave Velvet went to the counter to purchase a boxed cake to go. Velvet had been an avid conversation partner up to that point, yet now it seemed Naruto had stepped on a landmine.

"You don't like cake?!" Velvet burst out with a face that would have been better equipped on someone who'd just witnessed a blood oath broken. The betrayal on her face was staggering, to say the least.

"Too much sugar for me. Always been more of a salt guy. Why have a slice of cake when I can have a bowl of ramen?"

The blond waiter chuckled as he took the payment out of Velvet's upturned hand. Said girl was too busy moving her mouth open and closed as she attempted to process the impossibility that had occurred to hand it over to the waiter. "You can't dislike cake! Nobody doesn't like cake!"

"Plenty of people don't like cake." Naruto shrugged with a chuckle.

"Nobody doesn't like cake!" Velvet hissed the repetition at him as she jabbed a finger into his chest. "Cake is the universal celebratory treat. Everyone has cake on their birthday!"

Naruto grabbed the change from the man as it was presented. He then took the outraged bunny's hand within his own, outstretching her fingers and depositing the spare coins into them. Naruto couldn't discern the reason, but Velvet's righteous indignation on behalf of the circular confection gave way to a bout of unrepentant blushing.

"Let's get going?" Naruto asked/told as he lightly tugged her hand towards the exit, grabbing the boxed cake offered by the waiter with his other. The kid serving them looked even younger than Velvet and Naruto didn't want to bother him with joking that might be confused as squabbling.

It pained her to do so, but Velvet freed her hand from Naruto's so she could reach into her wallet and deposit an additional five lien tip for the blond who had served them. This trip to the coffee shop had been a godsend for her. She didn't get much time for casual conversation with Naruto — he was always busy himself or kept busy by others. The wait for her order had been the perfect excuse for some much overdue face-to-face time with Naruto. It was basically the only part of Coco's advice that had actually gone to plan.

After she tipped the man more than what she'd paid for the coffee in the first place (to wide, blue-eyed gratitude) she tried to present her hand in a way that would hopefully hint to a certain someone that it wished to resume its previous position. Unfortunately, the man that could track a person's aura from miles away couldn't find her restless hand that was practically under his nose, thus her flexing fingers went unnoticed. Velvet finally made for the exit with Naruto, silently cursing herself for withdrawing her hand in the first place.

Shortly after they exited the shop and made their way through the bustling streets of Vale Naruto began to wear a peculiar smile. Velvet couldn't divine the reason but hoped it was just that Naruto was enjoying himself. Though she didn't know it, Velvet happened to be right. While that was a fact that would have made her happy, there was a clarifying detail that would have just as easily dashed it. Now, what was that clarifier?

Presently she was not the woman he was smiling about.

Aura and chakra were different in some ways, but there were also quite a few striking similarities between them. The fact that both aura and chakra manifested the characteristics — or the soul — of its user was the iota of information that pertained to Naruto's amusement. You could disguise yourself with a different hair color, change your outfit, whatever… but that didn't mean you changed how your aura felt.

Naruto directed Velvet's attention across the street in order to conceal what he did next. His hand plunged into his satchel and withdrew a shrunken scroll from its depths. With a puff of smoke, he redeposited the scroll as he produces the intended item from its seal. With a theatrical flourish, he touted the item for one person in particular as he moved it over Velvet's head. The shade descending on the rabbit-girl initially startled, but then confused her.

"An umbrella?" She asked, not quite able to make sense of the bizarre contrast of the pink and white parasol against Naruto's own orange and black theme.

"Actually it's a parasol." Naruto corrected her snootily. He wasn't able to maintain the high society air for long under Velvet's questioning look. His smarmy smile quickly gave way to a grin. "I've been lectured by our resident specialist in high class that a parasol is meant to be used to provide shade. I figured with winter coming up I couldn't be sure how much more time I'd have to use this thing properly."

Velvet giggles as he twirled the frilly thing above her head. "I'm not sure it's the right look for you."

"Really?!" Naruto gasped. "And here I thought it brought out my eyes."

"I'm sure." Velvet drolled. She was surprisingly relaxed around Naruto as they walked down the street together. Velvet considered herself shy, reserved, and overall a little awkward with almost everyone she met. It took her months to get close to her own team — the very team that was now like her family. By comparison, she'd grown close to Naruto much faster than she'd intended, or even thought possible.

It was bizarre. He just had an aura about him that relaxed people… for the most part. That one time in the library when Pyrrha burst in on the two of them he'd snapped into some kind of mode that had the exact opposite effect. It was chilling. It was commanding. How he was right now brought out who she was. Who he'd been then forced one's personality on the backburner. He didn't act in a way that demanded obedience — he acted in a way that commanded it, personal will of those subjugated by his rule be damned.

How could someone's personality be so dual? Velvet had never seen a leader capable of making others fall into line like he had. At the same time, she had never seen a leader who contorted himself into the role like he had. Naruto liked to joke, mess around — he pulled out a pink parasol in the middle of Vale! He enjoyed being that person; the unpredictable prankster and rogue. Why did he sacrifice that when he became a leader? Surely he could fit his personality into his leadership — a teenage leader didn't need to act like a military instructor.

As much as she wanted to ask these questions, she couldn't. She'd been pulled aside by Naruto's team and told to avoid prying into anything about him. They had refused to tell her what but claimed something very bad had happened to him as a result of stress. The stress they claimed to be primarily caused by people constantly trying to stick their noses in his business. When they first told her Velvet worried that it was some way of trying to get her away from their leader. That theory was quickly debunked when they welcomed her into the fold and she spent more time hanging out with them than ever.

Although she wasn't completely on board neither was she willing to rock the boat… yet. Walking on eggshells around him was not a long-term solution. It was a short-term patch. The only thing stopping her from trying to do something was the fact that his team had acknowledged that fact readily. Absent were many key points of information, but Velvet decided to have faith. His team earnestly had their leader's best interest at heart. She couldn't be sure this was the right way to go about things, but she was willing to trust in what they knew that she didn't.

Of course, she'd have preferred it if they just told her what that something was!

"So the parasol?" Velvet asked as she pointed above her head.

"The one that doesn't bring out my eyes?" Naruto griped.

"Why do you have a pink parasol?" She completely ignored his question.

The blond pouted childishly before answering. "Well, it may shock you to know this… but this isn't mine."

Velvet didn't answer with words, opting for a deadpan stare in lieu of verbal communication. Silent though it was, that wasn't to say it didn't have its desired effect. "It was some huntress' weapon. It just happened to fall into my care."

"Is she okay?" Velvet asked with evident worry. No trained huntress would ever just give up their weapon. If it fell into someone else's possession…

"She's fine." Naruto waved her dark thoughts away with a grin. "She and her partner were just careless during a mission they were taking. She had to ditch the weapon and flee from a fight they couldn't win."

"She had to abandon her weapon to run? That parasol is a weapon?"

"Kind of and yes," Naruto answered. "She was in way over her head. Used the parasol as a distraction to flee from a superior opponent."

Velvet felt a flash of annoyance from Naruto — or at least that was her initial thought. A quick scan of his features revealed only an ever-growing amusement.

 _Did I imagine that?_ Velvet wondered. She could have sworn she felt some pretty pointed agitation.

"So why are you carrying it around with you? Couldn't you just return it to her at Beacon?"

"Not a Beacon huntress." Naruto clarified. "I don't really know where she's from or where to find her. So I just carry this around in the hopes that one day she might find me." He chuckled, a bit of bite dripping from the sound. "Then again she may just be too embarrassed. Last time I saw her she and her partner were running away with their tails between their legs. She might just be sheepish that they ran away, leaving everything she was supposed to take to a first year."

Any response Velvet may have had wasn't given proper time to formulate in her head — let alone be vocalized — before Naruto sprung into motion. He ducked a few feet lower, his head dropping to around her navel. With a light shove, he displaced her towards the window of the nearby shop as a booted leg sailed over his head. In the same motion, he retracted the parasol and flipped it in his free hand so that the looped end was sticking above his head.

To the owner-of-said-leg's all too evident rage her kick did not find Naruto's head, rather it found itself caught inter loop of the parasol as the body behind it got hoisted into the air like a racked fish. Naruto's hand slapped down on the booted foot and secured it to prevent the ankle from bending. With the foot firmly secure the short blonde girl could only glare balefully as the crouching Naruto raised her up so that her face dangled upside down at eye level.

"Oh hey there." Naruto grinned. "We were just talking about you."

* * *

She really, REALLY fucking hated this guy.

Neo had been in a pretty piss poor mood to begin with. She and Roman had been force-fed the shit task of finding out more about Naruto. It was something they'd already been doing, but being ordered to do it made the lack of results all the more obnoxious. They had canvased Vale to try and find information about him, asking all the brokers about who the guy was. When not even Hei had managed to get anything Neo knew the guy was a ghost. Junior could squeeze the lifeblood of information from a goddamn stone on a daily basis, yet even he had no clue who this guy was.

She'd say she had been walking around Vale lamenting about it, only that didn't quite fit the bill. As terrifying as the prospect of Cinder's hands tightening both their nooses for failure was it just wasn't enough to override how livid the short woman was about Naruto. It was impossible that the blond bastard existed and no one knew jack about him.

Someone had to have trained him. Someone had to have met him. Neo refused to believe that someone could get strong enough to beat not only her but both Roman and her without making a single footprint they could track. The son of a bitch existed as mocking testament to that fact in spite of her every effort to find the smallest of ripples he might have made. Roman had been tasked with some newspaper nonsense from Cinder with hopes it might flush out some information about him, but there was nothing to show for it.

The worst part was that Naruto wasn't subtle. Since he'd arrived at Beacon he'd been gaining traction on the web. Videos of his fights had made their rounds and he was growing into a small celebrity. He wasn't on prime time television or anything like that. So the fact that a kid who could go from zero to net star in a matter of a month or two had no past they could find was nothing but a big middle finger Neo felt forced to stare at day in and day out.

As annoyed as she was Neo decided to go and snag some ice cream from her favorite place to calm herself down. Of course, as if the son of a bitch was mocking her frustration about not finding him, she found him right fucking there. Literally inside the very place she intended to go sat the blond bastard with a smile on his face! Talking to some bunny bimbo no less. The one time she wasn't looking for him!

It took the full twenty odd minutes Naruto spent in the cafe for Neo to scale down her exploding anger to the level of passionate fuming. When he finally did leave Neo had already decided to tail him. She was disguised; transformed into a nondescript blonde with plain form-fitting blue jeans and a light pink top. She hadn't dressed to impress that day as the only thing on her mind was a nice bowl of ice cream and some silence. Her unassuming attire was an unintended bonus for her newfound goal of following Naruto. If she'd been a bit flashier some idiot might have tried to hit on her and blown her tail.

Not that she didn't come inches away from doing that herself within a matter of minutes of her impromptu op. In the span of twenty seconds it was hard to tell what annoyed her the most;

The fact that he was using her parasol.

The specific fact that he was using her parasol to pointlessly protect his date from the irrelevant autumn sun.

The idiot girl calling it an umbrella.

Or just Naruto himself. Every passing moment she spent looking at the bastard felt like one step closer to losing her shit. Nothing about the guy made any sense. It was impossible for someone to be so incompetent at keeping their anonymity. It made no sense that he was so strong as a first year. It made no sense that he hadn't so much as stepped on a twig that someone could tell them about before showing up at Beacon. Neo had gone back and forth on believing he was a prodigy or an invalid more times than she could count.

It took a few comments, but Neo knew she'd been made around the time he mentioned that the owner of the parasol — Neo herself — had been forced to flee by a 'superior' opponent. She lost control of her bloodlust as she fantasized about strangling him right then and there. It was only after she gathered herself again that she realized the remarks he was making were obviously for her benefit, or rather her detriment.

Neo had no idea how Naruto had figured out she was following him. She looked nothing like she had the night when they'd met. The two of them were walking at pace with the crowd on the streets so her not passing them shouldn't have raised any alarms either. There was no possible way he could have been onto her. That meant it was yet another unexplainable thing about the blond bastard that pushed her blood pressure even higher.

His comments grew increasingly derogatory as his shit-eating smirk grew proportionately larger. If she'd had any doubt that he knew she was there, it'd be gone by this point. There were so many things she wanted from Naruto at that point. She obviously wanted to know how he'd figured her out. Aside from that, she wanted to know why he'd let her and Roman go at the docks. Even more than the first two, she wanted to understand how such a careless bastard was such a ghost.

"She might just be sheepish that they ran away, leaving everything she was supposed to take to a first year."

But most of all? She wanted to kick his fucking face in.

As she quickly closed the distance between them a small part of her brain warned her this was more than just a bad idea — it was an absolutely terrible one. He'd been screwing around with both her and Roman at the same time and they hadn't made a dent. Still, it wasn't like what she was doing was completely illogical. A normal goody-goody would have brought her and Roman in the first time so they could get a gold star glued onto their uniform or however the hell they placated the kids at that rich snob school. He'd been content enough to let them get away and give that up. Something about Naruto just wasn't on the up and up.

She'd thought about approaching him to figure out exactly why that was. If worse came to worst and Naruto regretted letting her go she could just use her semblance to get out. In the best case maybe she got something useful. Saying she'd thought things through to that degree as she charged Naruto down like a petite bull that had seen red would have been a stretch. The one thing she knew with all certainty was that she couldn't even begin to imagine how could it would feel to lodge her boot in his stupid face.

Unfortunately for her, things didn't go down the blissful path her imagination had taken. "Oh hey there. We were just talking about you."

Neo hanged upside down by a singular foot as it was held in place by a combination of her own parasol and Naruto's hand. Immediately she flailed like a hellcat as she tried to kick, punch, bite, and claw the blond that had captured her into a bloody pulp. Neo was convinced that he was doing his damndest to frustrate her even more when each and every strike would miss as he swung her body about to throw off the trajectory of her attacks.

"Ummmm…" The rabbit girl interjected herself into Neo's furious attempts to murder her captor. "What's going on?"

Naruto laughed, bemused at what she knew he considered futile attempts on her part to lacerate him into ribbons. If it was possible that only intensified her desire to turn that fantasy into a grisly reality. "I think she's a little unhappy with me."

Neo couldn't remember the last time she'd wished she'd had a voice as much as she did now, if only so he could tell him what a goddamn understatement that was. "Maybe you should set her down? People are beginning to stare." He definitely should, and they were. Neo's attack had taken place on a public street, which, in hindsight, was probably a pretty poor idea. In an interesting turn of events, that very reason that would have made it seem so poor initially was actually working to her advantage.

"Down you go," Naruto said as he tossed her into the air. She nimbly landed on her feet with relaxed grace. "Now if you could stop trying to kill me I'd appreciate it."

 _It's cute but inconvenient._ His tone suggested. Neo would have bristled at that, but she was already as bristled as she felt capable of being. The hidden remark was like throwing a lit match into an inferno.

"So, what was that about?" The bunny girl asked.

"I present to you the partner of this parasol." Naruto presented Neo with a pointing of her own parasol. Neo wasn't quite sure what situation she had found herself in. Instead of acting rashly as she already had she decided to let things play out a little bit longer.

"Naruto!" The bunny scolded him. "Did you know she was there the whole time you were talking?" A coy grin and a sideways look was all the answer the bunny needed. "You're terrible. I'm so sorry, he can take teasing a bit far."

"That accusation is as baseless as it is false!" Naruto protested.

"Considering I've seen how often you poke fun at people I'd say that assumption is pretty well founded." The bunny asked him with a singular arched brow, echoing Neo's own assumptions based on the two times she'd met him. "So that would mean it's true?"

"Damn, I was hoping you'd miss that." He responded with a grin, not at all embarrassed for having been caught. With a flick of his wrist, he presented the pink and white parasol to its owner. "I've been safekeeping it until I found you. I assure you I've kept it clean. Feel free to check for yourself before you take it home."

 _Well, that's weird._ Neo thought to herself. Naruto knew who she was, what she was, yet here he was returning her weapon with no clear intention of apprehending her. It looked like her instincts had been correct; Naruto was not the typical Beacon brat. That didn't mean she knew why he did what he did, but it was something.

"Are you two friends?" The girl asked curiously, territorially. Neo scoffed silently.

"We have more of a working relationship," Naruto informed her. "We've run into each other on the job before. Definitely more of a casual thing."

Now that was a poor choice of words. It seemed his date was trusting enough to take his words innocently, though Neo had seen the flash of recognition in her eyes for the more salacious interpretation. That presented a delectable opportunity for some much needed revenge. It wasn't exactly kicking him in the face, but it would have to do.

So Neo leaned in and grabbed his ass.

The rabbit's reaction was basically what she'd expected. A furious crimson blush combined with a look crossed between embarrassment and jealousy. Even if she didn't wish the Beacon girl ill will there was still a great sense of satisfaction in getting under someone's skin.

Naruto's reaction? Now that she didn't expect. His blush was even darker and deeper than the rabbit's. He spluttered uncontrollably, searching for words of protest that he couldn't find. Watching the calm, collected, smug son of a bitch flounder like a virgin on prom night was more satisfying than Neo could put into words. Well, if she had any that was. As an added bonus it turned out he had a pretty nice ass, firm and toned. When he managed to regain some small amount of composure he burst out of her grip.

"N-n-not that kind of casual." Naruto stuttered clarification. Neo doubled over in silent laughter. Getting him back, even if it was just screwing with him on his date, had been well worth the risk of exposing herself.

"S-should I leave you two alone?" His date asked him, similarly flustered.

Neo nodded her head and licked her lips provocatively as Naruto shook his with such strength it was like he was trying to dispel the very notions of what was being suggested by force. "I just needed to give her a message before we went back to Beacon." He promised the bunny girl. Neo imagined he might have whispered his next words to her prior to her well-deserved vengeance, but decided against doing anything that would close the little space he had built between them. "Let your partner know I want to have a chat with the two of you in the next week."

Well, that was a fucking buzzkill. It more or less confirmed that he'd let Roman and herself run free because he wanted to use the two of them. With Cinder coercing them into compliance already Neo wasn't enthralled with the idea of the blond bastard joining the fold. She didn't exactly have much room to protest, though. With an awkward wave as his only farewell, Naruto tugged the bunny by her hand down the street. If Neo didn't hate the guy so much she'd find his shyness over a little fondling to be adorable.

Neo sighed, uncertain if she was more stressed or relaxed after her encounter with the man-would-be-ghost. She'd learned two things about him that day, only two. She didn't usually take the glass-half-full approach, but that almost doubled the things they'd known about him prior. He was terrible at handling women, or at least a woman's sexuality. That could be incredibly useful if Roman decided to acquiesce with Naruto's request for a meet. The second thing they'd all suspected, as it was difficult to rationalize anything else, but now they'd confirmed that Naruto was not a normal student.

If only she knew what a terrible job that summary did at describing him. As untrusting as she was she would sweep her parasol for any bugs before being confident enough to take it anywhere important. When she did it would come up completely and totally clean. What she wouldn't do is shine a flashlight down the sword sheath compartment. If she had, maybe she would have noticed a peculiar marking there.

* * *

There were some things that people would complain endlessly about. On the flip side, there were things that people didn't really appreciate. Pyrrha hadn't really had any friends at Sanctum Academy. She'd had some in the beginning, they just didn't last. As her fame rose and rose with each passing year her ability to form friendships had sunk lower and lower. It was difficult to tell whether it would have been harder to find someone who didn't know about her fame or someone who wouldn't care about it. Each seemed equally impossible at the time.

She'd envied a normal student's ability to have friends, just like it was nothing at all. She was accustomed to feeling jealous of others' general ability to have friends. That was an emotion she'd explored so thoroughly she could probably write anyone who was interested a detailed map. Being specifically jealous?

That was new.

Her leader, her partner, and as she'd finally admitted to herself, her crush was walking around Vale with another girl. Not only that, this was a girl who was attractive, single, and very obviously interested. The only thing that provided her with any fraction of relief was Naruto's almost mythical density towards either of their feelings. That didn't mean her stomach wasn't doing somersaults as her brain ran over the worst case scenario for the thousand-and-first time, oh no. All that it meant was that she was able to nurse the flame of hope that nothing would happen that she couldn't recover from.

"I hate blonde women." Pyrrha heard Naruto grumble loudly from the hallway. Butterflies flew around her stomach like they were trying to find a way to escape as she heard her partner's hand on the doorknob.

"Welcome back!" She greeted him with a beaming smile. Finally, he was back. Pyrrha swore to herself she'd be productive in his absence but had definitely fallen short of that goal. Her unfinished homework for Oobleck's class lay unfinished in the binder on her lap as she sat on the bed.

"When she had brown and pink hair, no problem! The second she becomes a blonde, huge problem!" Naruto complained as he fell face first onto his bed. Pyrrha noticed a polished shine jutting out from his left hip, but she couldn't quite make out what it was.

"Were you able to find what you were looking for?" She asked.

"Yeah. At least that went as planned." Naruto exhaled in exasperation. "Actually it went better than planned. I found something for you I'd been looking for."

One minute it was nervously anxious butterflies, the next they were hopeful and giddy. Pyrrha had written off what girls at Sanctum had said about falling for someone being exhausting. Surely if they'd trained more they would have felt real exhaustion! Now she wished she could go back and apologize. "For me?"

"Yup. Actually, where are the other two?" Naruto asked when he realized they were alone in the room.

"Ren asked Nora to help him train more. I think they went to the track you had us all meet at this morning."

Naruto hummed approval, his mood improving upon hearing the news. "I'm surprised he wanted to train more after the morning session. Maybe I underestimated him."

Pyrrha had been surprised too. The morning session hadn't stopped after the sand weights. After that, they'd been forced to spar almost everyone else that had been there. Considering the odd number of people she'd been forced to spar two people at once almost every time. Despite the best efforts of her opponents, Pyrrha had remained undefeated throughout every spar. She had to admit that part of that was very obviously due to her superior physical conditioning.

She'd been surprised because Ren had lost a majority of his own matches. In his first spar he beat Sky one-sidedly. He then lost to both Nora and Cardin, though the latter could partially be attributed to the immense exhaustion that he'd been displaying at that point. After that he barely managed to beat Russel, an opponent who was similarly spent, before losing to Pyrrha. The only person he hadn't fought was Dove. As much as Pyrrha wanted to believe in her teammate… she knew that match would have gone to Bronzewing if it had happened. Ren had basically fallen over by the time she'd sparred him.

"I think he'll be impressing everyone pretty soon." Pyrrha smiled. "I can recognize the rekindling of a warrior's spirit when I see it."

Naruto's smile was slightly obfuscated by the covers of his bed. "I guess that means now is as good a time as any." Naruto rocked himself out of his bed with only the smallest bit of reluctance. "Cmon, let's go find 'em."

"Sure!" Pyrrha rose chipperly from her bed, her homework binder falling abandoned by the wayside. "But why?"

"We've got missions coming up pretty soon. I figured I should try and get you all up to speed before we get dropped in the 'whoops this was supposed to be an A-rank' mission. No joke, it's gonna happen."

Pyrrha laughed and had to stop herself from skipping up to her partner. She was pretty new to a lot of things in Beacon. No one on her team really cared that she was famous, that was new. Being part of a team that had finally begun to stick together was a fresh experience as well. Of all the previously unexplored territory there was one that had quickly become her favorite. Chasing after her partner — a person whose ability far superseded her own — was the best. She was glad to have had the mantle of champion taken from her so she could once again be the challenger.

"What was it you said you got from me?" Pyrrha asked, reminding him that he'd never actually told her.

Naruto bumped his shoulder into hers as they walked side by side down the hallway. "Cool it, sheesh. I thought champions were supposed to be patient."

They were. Pyrrha could attest to the patience she'd needed as a champion. She was always waiting for a challenge that felt like it would never come. Now, however? Now she wasn't the champion anymore. That meant she didn't need a champion's patience.

"Can you give me a hint?"

"Kami, help me…."

And she loved that most of all.

* * *

The ground exploded in front of him as Ren barely managed to force his legs to propel him backwards. His body was drenched with sweat, as were his clothes, with more of the salty liquid streaming plentifully down his face. His sweat-laden clothes were disheveled in a mixture of battle-wear and function. He had his normally constricting collar unbuttoned in an attempt to garner much needed air circulation for his overheating body. The fact that his clothes had torn and the left shoulder of his top sloughed off uselessly to the side of his shoulder was much less by design in comparison. Though he couldn't deny his gratitude for the wardrobe malfunction that helped cool him, even if it was only a slight benefit.

At this point, he'd take anything he could get.

Magnhild was the cause of the crater in the ground. A cause he had only narrowly avoided. The weilder of the crater creating hammer wasn't one to let up, thus Ren quickly found himself under assault once more. Nora ran at him with such force that he could feel her footsteps through the earth like a lumbering ursa. A sweeping attack from his partner forced him to either jump high enough to avoid it, jump far enough away to dodge it, duck low enough that it missed, or judge the trajectory of the attack well enough to dodge it by a hair by any of those means so that he could counterattack.

If Ren was to judge by the fact that getting hit by the concussive force of Nora's massive weapon was beginning to seem preferable to moving… well, suffice to say he didn't trust his judgement at that given point in time. Ren decided to leap backwards once more primarily because he neither trusted himself to jump high enough nor to not collapse into a motionless heap if he ducked. Ren put all his failing strength into his legs again, god only knew how many times he'd done that already.

For his efforts, he managed to accidentally execute the fourth option, however unintentionally. Magnhild sailed past his eyes, tickling his hair as it went. Ren knew this was his best chance to retaliate. That didn't mean there was anything he could do about it. While the soul may be willing the flesh was not, and Ren stood still with jellied legs as he waited for the next attack. Nora gave no quarter as she swung her hammer in a full circle, one foot pivoting on the ground while her other remained aloft, and brought the weapon to rest directly in front of his face. He couldn't have dodged it, his leaden legs felt practically rooted in place.

"Boop!" Nora giggled as she pushed the top of her hammer into Ren's forehead, knocking him to the ground. The grassy field at the center of the track felt much more pleasant on his skin than it had any right to.

"I can... I can keep…" Ren's words spoke of protest towards the fight's end that his body refused to back up.

Nora let herself fall onto the grass alongside him, beads of sweat streaming down her body. She was nowhere near as spent as Ren, not even close, but this hadn't been easy for her either. "I think you can keep laying there. Maaaaybe we can go again in five minutes."

Ren would have given her a thumbs up if his body hadn't been ready to revolt at the prospect of moving anything in any amount. As it were he opted to grunt his approval, a grunt that came out as more of a whimper. He assuaged any thoughts of self-deprecation with the assurance that is was a manly whimper of manly pain after an incredibly manly workout.

"So why'd ya wanna train?" Nora asked as she rocked back and forth, grasping her crossed legs in her hand. "I don't think we've ever sparred this long."

They hadn't. Ren would have remembered any training session half as laborious as this. That realization surprised him, but that wasn't his primary reaction. More than anything he was ashamed. He was obviously capable of doing this — he'd just done it — so why had he not been doing this before? Ren couldn't imagine a world where he trained himself this hard on a regular basis and didn't improve.

Why didn't Beacon put all their huntsmen through more rigorous training? If a team like CRDL could improve their physique so much in a month it stood to reason that Naruto's training program produced results. It was hard for Ren to understand the logic of why such an effective workout was not commonplace.

"I just… wanted to be better." Ren answered. Philosophically there was a bit more to it, but it was true. He hadn't realized he'd been stagnating until this morning. After the conversation with Russel and Dove things just changed. It went from an issue he couldn't see to one he couldn't ignore.

"We've always wanted to be better." Nora shoved his shoulder lightly, rocking him on the grass. "You haven't always been making enough sweat to bathe in."

That was true. It was his last thought that was false. Even if he realized his stagnation it would have been all too easy to just continue. No one had pointed it out to him yet, so it was likely they wouldn't in the future. With his willing participation, he could have continued living the same life he had been. A life that was far and away easier if he intended to make pushing himself this far a regular activity.

"I just realized… I wasn't good enough." Ren gasped out. His lungs had yet to supply his blood with enough oxygen for his brain to consider such desperate, gasping breaths unnecessary.

"Cmon. You're better than half our classmates!" Nora consoled him.

That was true. If you took a random first-year huntsman and pitted them against Ren he'd have much better odds than a coin flip to win. His semblance wasn't flashy, but his aura control was leagues ahead of most. He was also both more agile and stealthier than a majority of his peers at Beacon. If someone were to call him an impressive first year they would not have been wrong.

That kind of praise just didn't matter anymore. It had been so easy for Ren to become complacent with his virtues that he succumbed to the vice of sloth. As long as people found him satisfactory, as long as there had been no outward complaint it was easy to delude himself that things were fine. After all, no one else seemed any stronger than when they had enlisted in Beacon.

Except for CRDL.

The team he had expected most to remain the same had ironically been the one to change. Was that because of talent? No. Was that because of Naruto? Possibly. It would have been easy to begrudge his leader — a leader who trained others instead of his own — for his failure to progress. For it was because of his tutelage that the team of ex-bullies were progressing so fast.

Right?

In reality, Ren doubted that Naruto was telling the truth when he said he was teaching the worst team because they were the worst. It felt more like he was training CRDL because they'd cared enough to ask, especially after today. They'd asked the night prior to be trained, then trained they were. There was no judgement on their relative strengths and weaknesses compared to the other team. Those who were willing to train did so. Those who weren't didn't. The message behind that resonated with Ren.

"I'm only going to get better if I'm willing to break my own limits." Ren's voice took on a steady, absolute certainty. "It doesn't matter what others say. What matters most is what I decide. I've decided to become more than what I am."

For the people of Remnant, for his team, for those who needed him, for revenge against the grimm that took everything from him. For all those reasons and more he could not stay as he was. To say he enjoyed feeling as totally spent as he was now would have been an outright lie. The difference was that he no longer expected the path to being an exceptional huntsman to be easy.

That sounded wrong when he thought about it. Had he ever expected becoming strong to be easy? The thought had never actively crossed his mind, of that he was certain. If he had to peg it down it would be a mix of what Russel and Dove had said; he'd never expected it to be so challenging, but he was becoming accustomed to the idea of it.

To become who he wished to be would require days like this. Days in which he no longer felt like he could move once they were over. Like Russel had said the morning workout had been nothing short of agonizing. This incredibly lengthy sparring session with Nora had garnered a very similar reaction, but it was lesser. His mind and body were slowly acclimatizing themselves to expect this level of suffering to be considered normal. They were both raging passionately at the moment in a combination of physical pain and his mind screaming to never be put through that again. Still, Ren couldn't help but think they were both quieter than they had been that morning.

Any further discussion or thought on the matter was cut short by the sound of someone approaching. Ren couldn't be sure, mainly because his entire body felt like death itself, but he counted two pairs of feet. "Sheesh, you wanted to train more after this morning? Maybe I'll have to amp things up a bit more."

"Please don't." Ren groaned, recognizing the voice immediately. A few seconds later a familiar blond hunched over him with a taunting grin.

"Wuss." Naruto laughed, Nora and Pyrrha joining him. Ren would have scowled, but he couldn't find it in himself to do so. Partially because that would require his facial muscles to do more work than necessary. Though if he was being honest with himself there was something more to it than that.

"Given my present position, I'm fairly aware of that." Ren sniped back at Naruto. "A leader shouldn't kick their teammate when they're down."

Naruto proceeded to nudge the not-yet corpse of Ren with his shoed foot. "Guess I'm not a good leader." The whole team laughed together. It was childish, he couldn't deny that, but they were unified in their childishness. They hadn't really trained to fight as a team, not in any sense of the phrase. However, now more than ever, they felt more like a team in another respect. Their leader was spending time with them and things were moving forward. Slowly but surely it felt like the incident at the docks was moving further and further into the past tense.

"Why have you graced us with your presence, oh fearless leader?" Nora asked as she genuflected before Naruto. The supposedly fearless leader's response was a groan of exasperation.

"I get it, I get it already. I haven't been the most attentive in the past few wee- since we became a team." Naruto corrected himself midway through his sentence. A prudent decision if Pyrrha's particular type of smile was any indication. "Actually that is why I'm here."

"Ohmygod are we going on a team building vacation!?" Nora's eyes lit up like fireworks bursting in the sky.

"No."

And the fireworks were gone.

"What is that?" Ren asked, pointing to the metal container hanging from the left side of Naruto's hip. It looked similar to his gourd in shape, but it had the sleek black appearance of polished iron.

"Luckily for me, that question is actually on topic." Naruto chuckled. "Pyrrha, as promised earlier."

Naruto undid a small leather cord that had been tied off underneath his shirt. It looked more like something that was meant to be tied off around a belt loop than one's waist. Pyrrha easily caught the iron receptacle in her hands, though a surprised look flashed across her face.

"Is this the gift you were talking about? It's pretty heavy," Pyrrha admitted, a bit confused about the exact purpose of the metal container.

Naruto nodded. "Should be. The container was cast using some pretty well-refined iron. As for what it's holding…"

"More iron." Pyrrha poured some into her hand. The container didn't house small bladed weapons or ammunition like one might have expected. The metallic contents stored within was iron dust in its simplest form.

"I'd prefer to think of it as the answer to a question." Naruto nodded, clearly impressed with himself. Ren had regained enough stamina to roll his eyes.

"And what question would that be?"

"How do I make my sucky teammates less sucky." Naruto preened. His face seemed to say 'I am the greatest, praise me'. Nora punched him in the back of the head for that. Other than a sour-faced Naruto it was clear that everyone else present thought that the hit was well deserved. "Hey! If you beat me up I'm not going to show you the super cool technique I thought up for you."

"Super cool technique?!" The fireworks were back in full force within the orange haired girl's eyes.

"You betcha. So please, mercy." Naruto grumbled as he finished rubbing his head. "I'm pretty sure you're smart enough to figure out what I have in mind for you Pyrrha."

She was. "You want me to do something similar to the way you manipulate sand?"

"Bingo!" Naruto praised her. The spartan was obviously pleased with herself. "Some guy actually came up with this a long time ago. Saw someone controlling the sand like I do and tried to figure out a way he could do it himself. Turned out he had a magnetism semblance like yours, so this was the solution. Honestly, as impressive as it sounds it is pretty simple in concept."

Ren had his doubts about the simplicity of the concept, as it appeared did Pyrrha. "The dust is almost microscopic! Controlling so many small pieces like that…" Ren silently agreed with her. Not only would a continuous use of her semblance be taxing on Pyrrha's aura, but using your semblance on multiple things was almost universally more difficult. Ren struggled using his own semblance on any more than a single person. Not all semblances had the same restrictions and difficulties, but the task their leader was asking of his partner was not an easy one.

"Kami, you're a whiner," Naruto complained. "I controlled four times as much sand while I was fighting Cinder. I can even do that while I'm fighting in close quarters. I figured asking you to only do a fourth of what I did was more likely to insult you than have you griping." Their leader sighed theatrically. "Do whatever you're capable of, I guess."

Well, that lacked any sense of subtlety. Ren thought to himself. Whether he was right in that assessment or not didn't seem to matter. Pyrrha's competitive streak ran a mile wide at its narrowest point. Her eyes blazed with determination as she used her semblance to deposit the small amount of dust in her hand to its container.

"Nora… don't hit me." Naruto requested nervously. She tilted her head like a confused puppy at their leader's out of the blue request. It didn't take very long for the rest of the team to understand why. "I don't think I can teach you your technique right now."

That cleared up the motive behind Naruto's request instantaneously. Ren hardly needed to be able to see into the future to know what his childhood friend's response would be. "WHAT?! YOU'RE KIDDING ME!"

Yeah, that's what he'd expected.

"Sort of." Naruto smiled. Ren did not like that smile. Ren did not trust that smile. "Technically I could try to do it today…" Ren really did not like that pause. "It's just that we're going to need Ren to master what I'm going to teach him before we can get to what I've got for you. Trust me though, it's incredible."

 _You absolute bastard._

If the heat of Pyrrha's determination was akin to fire, then Nora's was like molten lava. "Renny… I'll be helping you train until you learn this. Every." Please. "Single." God. "Day." No!

If looks could kill Ren would have smitten their leader where he stood.

"So what will I be helping him with?" Nora asked chipperly. Everything about the way she acted suggested that things were right as rain. If that was the case then why did Ren suddenly regret not jumping into Magnhild when he had the chance?

"Ren was a bit tricky," Naruto admitted, either oblivious to Ren's wrathful glare or otherwise uncaring. "His aura isn't that strong." Ren felt like an arrow shot through his back. "I've never seen his semblance, so I'm guessing it's useless for combat." Another went through his heart. "And all in all he really isn't that impressive in close quarters either."

After that torrent of emotional abuse, Ren felt like a pin cushion. "Thank you for sparing my feelings," Ren said sarcastically.

"I was understating things pretty heavily," Naruto admitted with a cheeky grin. Ren gave up and stared at the sky. There was no winning against their leader. "I wasn't sure what to do, then it hit me! Your low aura, low combat ability, and high aura control is actually pretty similar to one of my original teammates."

"Am I supposed to be overjoyed that you are used to dead weight?"

"No one likes a whiner." Naruto chastised him. "She turned herself in to someone that could keep up in spite of all those weaknesses. Sakura actually had a way that she used her aura that let her flatten me like a pancake if she ever landed a hit. Didn't matter that she had a ton less aura than I did because she knew how to use it."

Now that got Ren's attention. "That's impossible. If there was some way to use aura that powerful then everyone would be using it."

"He does have a point." Pyrrha agreed.

"Eh. Maybe we just figured things out better where I came from." Naruto shrugged casually. He proceeded to take a singular deep breath in, held it for three seconds, and then let it go. "Ren you'll want to watch my aura while I do this. Just take it with a grain of salt, okay? I'm really not the best at this."

Ren nodded as he sat upright, his eyes glued to Naruto as he reached his aura towards Naruto's own. As usual, he felt like a dwarf kneeling before a dragon, but he was used to that at this point.

"Actually," Naruto interrupted Ren's concentration. "I'm going to go to this over there."

Naruto jogged away from them towards the outside of the track. They weren't quite sure where he was going until he suddenly stopped. He was about twenty or thirty feet away from them at that point. Normally that would have been close to Ren's maximum range for aura detection, but Naruto lit up like a lighthouse as always.

"Alright!" Naruto raised his voice loud enough that they all could hear. "First you concentrate your aura into whatever you want to strike with. That could be your fist, your knee, your foot, it doesn't matter. I'm going to do it to my hand, so watch that."

Funnily enough, it was less like Naruto was concentrating his aura to his hand and more like he was draining his aura out of it. The result was that the aura in his fist was on the very high end of normal. It was still enough that it would have put him in the top one percent of huntsmen Ren had seen but compared to the godlike amount of power he normally radiated it was a much more relatable amount to be dealing with.

"What I'm going to try, and I emphasize that word, try to do is force the aura out of my fist the instant I make impact with the ground. I was serious when I said I sucked at this."

"You've always had fantastic control of your semblances. Why is this so different?" Pyrrha asked her concentrating partner.

"This is all about taking a little and making it go a long way. I've had a lot of aura to give ever since I was young, so I never needed to learn it." Naruto admitted.

That made sense to Ren. It was similar to how Weiss did not view money the same way that people as destitute as Ren and Nora would. Conservation of one's resources was a skill you learned out of necessity. People didn't talk about saving the trees until it got to a point where it looked like they might run out.

"Alright. I'm as ready as I'll ever be." Naruto steadied his already calm breathing even further. Ren focused on his leader's hand. The fist with abnormal huntsman's aura. The goal he could achieve if he put his mind to it. The only question that remained is what could that amount of aura do?

And as Naruto punched his fist to the ground that question was answered. Ren had expected Naruto to punch the air, merely displaying how the technique was executed. That wasn't what he received in actuality, not even close.

What greeted Ren was an assault on many fronts. The first attack was on his eyes, the sight of the ground rupturing before Naruto like thin ice coating a pond in winter. Only it wasn't thin ice, it was the solid ground cracking and shifting solely from the force of his blow.

The second affront to his senses was the feeling of the earth moving beneath him. The ground quaked almost perfectly in time with his ability to see it. The vibrations of from Naruto's assault on the earth reverberated through his body as if he was a bell that had been struck. The sensation was majestic, it was breathtaking, it was humbling. The effects of Naruto's attacks dissipated one by one until the only evidence was the jagged and broken earth before him. A fifteen-foot cone of demolition caused only by the control of their leader's aura

The final attack was auditory in nature. The dull roar of cracking earth broke across his ears in a show of raw, unbridled power. It was the sound of destruction so wanton in nature that Ren would have thought a subterranean charge had gone off if he didn't know better, but he did. He knew that this was something done purely with aura. He knew this was something he could achieve.

"This," Naruto turned to Ren and gestured towards the aftermath of what he'd done. "This is something I think you can do."


	25. Chaperone

_**Greetings and salutations! I have emerged from the depths of a 104 degree fever to finish this chapter one day late. I posted on my pa+reon to let those who check know that, but I couldn't really post on here since I found out that non-story chapters (even if they're temporary)**_ _ **are supposedly a big nono.**_

 _ **I came into a glut of time and have begun to board out all of F &C a little more clearly. As such, I will be releasing chapters as I write them (that means no schedule) on my pa+reon for the time being. Thank you all who have supported me on that site as well as those of you who are commenting along. I've read just about every comment on this fic at least ten times over and have responded to quite a few people as well. Funnily enough the people I've messaged rarely message me back XD**_

 **When I combined the fact that I spent a little longer on Red and White than I originally intended with the fact that I wanted the Cinder bit to be sufficiently lengthy I ended up feeling the need to split them into two separate chapters. Assuming God** _ **doesn't smite me with a second plague you'll be seeing the next chapter on Sunday as normally scheduled.**_

 ** _The Coverart was drawn by artist Moonlight. If you'd like to see your art featured please send it in to me!_**

* * *

 **Chapter 24**

 **Chaperone**

Did the laws of dibs not apply anymore?

Like, okay, maybe it was a _little_ childish to assume that just because she saw him first that meant he'd be her best friend. Even if it was immature it was just barely! Really, Ruby swore it was a fair assumption to make. How was it possible that she was the least close to the first friend she'd made at Beacon?!

He swooped in like some sort of fairytale knight to save her from a spazzed out Weiss. If life was a storybook that should have meant they'd have been fast friends already! The fact that they weren't was, as Weiss had said about many things already, completely unacceptable! But Ruby Rose was not going to take this affront lying down. Especially not lying face down on her bed, mumbling complaints to no one in particular as her team looked at her like some kind of weirdo. Definitely not that! Well… no more of it at least.

She had resolved herself to confront Naruto about a much-needed session of hanging out, drinking soda with sugar content high enough to render her semblance superfluous, devouring the saltiest of snacks, and video games she'd been playing since she was old enough to realize the controller Yang had been handing her to 'play along' wasn't even plugged in. In essence, it was the picturesque day for two friends to hang out and have the bestest of best times! So of-fricking-course on the morning she went to the NNVR dorm to ask him he wasn't there, nobody was. What a world!

Ruby wasn't going to be deterred by any setbacks. She guessed — correctly she might add — that they were probably doing some Saturday morning training. She felt a small tinge of guilt for not having set up one for her very own team that weekend, but this was important! Plus it wasn't like Naruto trained his team regularly at all, so she was as a model leader in comparison! Kind of. Maybe… ish. Honestly, that was a bit of a stigma with her. Naruto's team, her own team, even a stranger he'd never met would follow him into a thousand grimm if he told them to. She knew her friends would listen to her in a pinch, but that was because they knew her. She didn't have that aura of leadership that Naruto did.

The plan was working. Ever since the docks, Naruto had slowly but surely been returning to an image closer to that of the boy she had first met. Not talking about his past was a small price to pay to have her friend back. Ruby hadn't known what to expect after that dark and rainy night. As harrowing as it had been she should be grateful that everything was going as smoothly as it was. She should be happy that their plan was working and he was becoming friends… with his team… and not her.

So. Flipping. Happy.

So when she returned to their room a few hours later and Ren broke the news Naruto had left again she was a little bit steamed. Ruby asked if they knew when Naruto would be back. It was Pyrrha that responded, saying he was going into Vale with Velvet to get some custom made weaponry. Any jealousy Pyrrha might have been giving off was completely dwarfed by Ruby's sense of total betrayal. Custom made weapons and Ruby Rose practically belonged in the same sentence at all times! Instead of going with her, fellow team leader, same year in Beacon, first friend made at a new school, adorably cute, weapon-obsessed Ruby Rose to shop for **weapons** he went with his eighth friend?! What the frick?!

She'd had to force herself to calm down at that point. The complete betrayal of her faith aside, if he went with a normal girl like Velvet then weapon shopping shouldn't take all day. She'd just drop by later and they'd adapt her plan for a fun day into a plan for a jam-packed afternoon. Ruby checked again a few hours later, carefully making sure enough time had passed that it wasn't weird that she was checking again. Instead of finding one person more she found two less — Nora and Ren had gone out to train for the second time that day and Naruto was nowhere to be seen.

Ruby wasn't messing around anymore. She asked Pyrrha to tell her the moment Naruto got back. Even if part of the afternoon was gone she would shove so much fun into whatever time was left that Naruto would always want to hang out with her! It turned out that fate, along with a certain red-head, had conspired against her. Pyrrha had not informed her when Naruto got back. A fact that Ruby only found out when she went to check their dorm for the fourth time, only to find it locked and probably empty of any people. At that point the red reaper had no recourse but to throw her hands in the air, shouting faux-swears as she stomped back to her room, a human-shaped package of grouchiness.

So Saturday was a bust. Okay. She would overcome. Saturday had come and gone and it was now the morning of Sunday. In a completely normal and not at all warranting an explanation way Ruby was peering past the bookshelf she was concealed behind to stare wide-eyed at Naruto. It looked like he was using the library to do some homework. If the multitude of books spread open, surrounding him like a pack of grimm was any indication she'd guess it was Oobleck's class. For all the things he was good at Naruto was almost bad enough at world history to make up for all of them in one fell swoop.

If anyone had been watching her like she had been watching Naruto then Ruby would have pointed out there was nothing weird about what she was doing. She was just a girl attempting to hang out with her friend. Her motives were unimpeachable! Silver orbs tracked every minute movement of her fellow leader. There was no escape this time. Today was going to be the awesome-mega-mostest-fun day he'd ever have!

Until their next one, obviously.

* * *

 _Finally, freedom._ Naruto thought to himself as he poured over yet another page of Oobleck's veritable tome of assigned homework. He had to admit that of all the classes he was in that Oobleck's was the most worthwhile. Port's class was useless. Not only was it useless for the obvious reason — that of Port being an indescribably terrible teacher — but also the fact that grimm studies as they were intended to be taught were quite useless to Naruto.

He was fairly interested as to the exact nature of those black creatures. A class that studied them, their habits, their intents or anything like that would have been interesting. The class appeared to be much more pragmatically focused on factoids about grimm that would help you kill them. At least that was what Naruto had gleaned the few times the stars aligned and both Port said something worth saying and Naruto bothered to pay attention. Learning the weaknesses of something that would have difficulty putting a scratch on him if he tied both hands behind his back was a task as thankless as it was pointless.

Learning the history of a world he knew very little about so his secret didn't get outed was laudable in comparison. Naruto couldn't tell whether it was a manifestation of gratitude or revenge that caused Sky to assert himself as his personal history tutor. He was beginning to worry that his lack of knowledge had shifted from funnily dopey to oddly dubious. So Naruto had decided to redouble his efforts into learning the history of his place of residence in his free time. It would be more accurate to say what free time he had.

The kids had been relentless in their desire to spend time with him. Naruto didn't begrudge them for that or wish they'd stop. In a way it was kind of fun playing at being a teenager again; having a day in the library doing homework and chatting with schoolmates being the height of his responsibility was just the vacation he'd originally intended. That didn't change the fact that he was old and used to silence. For reasons beyond his reckoning, his headaches had finally obeyed his request to cease and desist. Far be it from him to look that particular gift horse in the mouth. Near the tail end, they had ceased to be pains of the brain and had begun to enter migraine territory. Whyever they were gone, they would not be missed.

A majority of your life spent sleeping with your back to a tree trunk left one with a penchant for places devoid of any noise past the chittering of insects or the tweeting of birdsong. With Pyrrha occupied with her rendition of the Third Kazekage's Iron Sand Technique, Ren occupied with Baa-chan's signature technique, and Nora occupied with badgering Ren to learn the aforementioned technique as fast as humanly possible Naruto had found himself with the gift of free time for the first time in a week at least. As the mountain of history homework prevented him from enjoying any quiet time enjoying the sound of the breeze through the trees he opted for the sound of quietly shuffling feet and turning pages. Naruto wasn't a book guy by any definition of the term, but he'd take any edge he could get to minimize his chances of being detected.

It hadn't taken him more than ten minutes of being in the library to realize he hadn't minimized them enough. Ruby had tracked him down with the tenacity and ability of one of Kakashi's ninja hounds. For reasons unbeknownst to anyone but the small girl, she had chosen to 'hide' behind a bookcase as she watched him. Naruto was loathe to use the word 'hide' to describe anything the young leader was doing as her hair hanging around the bookcase would have given her away to any dullard as clearly as the blazing intensity of her gaze could be felt on his back. Naruto's ability to sense the energy of a person was an unneeded excess as far as locating the little reaper.

On a positive note, her bizarre form of watchfulness gained him an extra half hour of peace. Some may have found being so obviously watched to be distracting, uncomfortable, or in some way disconcerting. Unsurprisingly after five years of leading his own village, he found a single pair of teenage eyes to be a non-factor. Naruto had given addresses to his people about how they'd provide food, shelter, and water. He had grown used to people looking at him for the answers of how they'd continue to live. That thought turned out to be a slippery slope as he soon found himself daydreaming as he wondered how Aluguard and the rest of the Maelstrom were faring.

"Ummm… Hi!" Naruto wished his peaceful quiet time a fond farewell.

"Hey, Ruby. What are you doing in the library?"

The reaction to what Naruto felt was an overly normal question was itself not remotely normal. "Well I- you know… just here for books! Homework… stuff and things."

Naruto gave her a reassuring smile as he motioned to the seat across from himself. "Well if you want you can do whatever stuff you need to do here. Things as well!" He smirked.

Ruby pouted a bit at the needling tease as she took a seat across from him. For all her claims about books, homework, and stuff there wasn't a single thing she had brought with her that would constitute any of the three. Stuff was vague enough that you could stretch it to mean just about anything, Naruto supposed.

"Are you doing anything after your homework?" Ruby asked. Naruto had been reluctant to address the reaper from her hiding place, loathe to give up what little free time he had managed to find. Looking at her face — full of hope and anticipation — Naruto found it hard to remember why free time had seemed so important minutes ago.

"I was just going to go and train a little bit. If you wanted to do someth-"

"What kind of training do you do?!" Ruby asked with completely unfettered curiosity brimming over her entire being. That had not been the reaction Naruto expected. Not at all.

* * *

Ruby wasn't letting herself be distracted from her original plan. The super-awesome-mega-fun day was important! _But I mean — who could resist knowing how he trains?!_ She thought to herself. It was a question in the minds and on the lips of just about everyone, and she meant everyone, in Beacon. He had a strong semblance, strong hand to hand skills, strong weapons skills, strong leadership, and those were just the things they knew about! Strong was just the perfect way to describe him.

Despite being as good as he was no one had ever seen him train at Beacon. Ever. Whenever he trained CRDL he'd just give them things to do and then watch them do it. He'd spent a few weeks avoiding everyone and Ruby assumed he'd been training then. She actually had no idea what Naruto did in his free time. What did he do for fun?

"Physical training and aura control," Naruto responded, a small smile spreading teasingly across his lips as he delivered the completely unsatisfactory answer.

"Well, duh!" Ruby exclaimed. "I meant what do you do to train? Like, specifically?"

"Physical training and aura control."

"Naruuuutttoooooo," Ruby whined and gave the blond her best puppy dog eyes. This was a calculated manipulation honed through more than a decade of being Yang's little sister. Her dad, her sister, the clerk at the candy store, these eyes had plied sweet treats from each and every one more times than Ruby cared to admit.

And Naruto was no exception. "Damnit Ruby," He grumbled. A well-recognized precursor for when her dad prepared to give her the ice cream she'd been begging for. "I do about four hours of push-ups, sit-ups, handstand push-ups, pull-ups and every other type of basic workout you can think of and then meditate for another four to practice controlling my aura. So like I said; Physical training and aura control."

 _Huh?_ The single exclamation sufficient in describing Ruby's attempt to grasp what he'd just said. Eight hours of training? Did he mean in a day? Four hours of which was just doing pushups and stuff like that? Nope! That was impossible. Ruby had done push-ups before. She could do a whole twenty before her arms decided they'd rather not be attached to her body and gave out if she dared to attempt twenty-one. Doing those for four hours? Nope! Not possible!

"If you want you could tag along for the first bit and train with me." Naruto offered. "Probably shouldn't stay for the entire time. It's a bit long for a normal person." Someone like Pyrrha would have taken that as a challenge. Ruby might have too if the challenge had been anything remotely reasonable. Four hours of something she barely did four minutes of? She was perfectly content noping all the way to Nopeville.

That didn't mean she was going to give up a chance to see how he trained. "Sure! Should we meet up by the track?" Ruby had heard from Cardin when they hung out at the library that they did all their training in the outdoor track and field area.

"I actually have a special place I train." Naruto confided in her. At least it felt like a secret to Ruby — a special place to train? "It's a bit too far to travel if you're joining up. Why don't we meet at the edge of the Emerald Forest? By the launch pads?"

Ruby couldn't agree fast enough. Finally, they were going to hang out! She'd take a brief detour from the super-mega-awesome-special fun day to see what voodoo magic training he did. After that, there would not be a force on Remnant that could stop her from dragging him to the RWBY dorm to play video games and all the rest.

"Well, I still need to finish all this homework before I head out. You okay to meet there in two hours?" Right. He was in the middle of being surrounded on all sides by the vicious history homework. Ruby decided that there were some battles he would have to fight on his own. It was a selfless decision, not at all influenced by the fact that she'd been avoiding homework herself and wanted to keep that bliss as long as possible.

"Yup! Is there anything I need to bring with me other than Crescent Rose?"

"I'd bring some water and maybe a snack. I don't know how long you'll be staying. Worst case you can always just head back to Beacon if you get hungry, thirsty, or bored. I don't intend to stray too far from the perimeter and risk running into any grimm."

"Alright!" Ruby's voice was more than a bit too loud for a library, but nobody was there to say anything about it. "This is going to be awesome!" She was already shifting the schedule in her head to make sure the super-mega-awesome-special-yougetthepoint fun day would still be a go. She'd ask him as soon as she'd finished impressing him with feats of prowess not related to the dreaded push-ups. Maybe she'd even figure out if he was actually faster than her! Not that she was worried about that or anything…

She waved goodbye as she skipped out of the library back to her dorm. She'd grab her water bottle and let her team know what was going on before heading out. She had to make sure she warmed up perfectly to put her best foot forward! No way could she let anything mess up today!

 _It's going to be perfect!_ Ruby smiled at no one as she resisted the urge to use her semblance through the hallway. Finally, a day with her first friend!

* * *

"Going to be honest here," Naruto said as he eyed her dubiously. "You weren't the shorty I was expecting."

A reluctant sigh was accompanied by a shaking of her head. "Please believe me when I say that this was in no way how I intended to spend my Sunday afternoon. I was rather much looking forward to some much needed quiet time."

"Ruby roped you into this?" Naruto asked, a bit puzzled.

"Not so much." She admitted. "Ruby dropped by our room and told us that she would be heading out to the forest, alone, with a boy. Quite obviously not what she said, yet equally obvious that it was what Yang had heard. So she demanded that Ruby be chaperoned."

Naruto chuckled at Yang's sisterly protectiveness, unnecessary though it was. "Still not sure where you come into this."

"I'm more worried that Yang would be in need a chaperone than her sister." Naruto opened his mouth as he held up a finger to protest on behalf of his fellow blonde. A few seconds passed as he really thought about it. The result of her findings had him lowering his hand and closing his mouth. "Exactly."

"Well, thanks for sacking your Sunday for this Weiss. I'm sure Ruby appreciates it too."

The heiress shook her head. "Compared to what it could be this is a worthwhile endeavor. Ruby told me this whole venture was to the end of seeing how you trained?"

"You're welcome to train with me." Naruto offered readily. Weiss could understand that. Being watched while you trained could be uncomfortable at the best of times. "Where is Ruby? I can't tell if I'm less surprised she's late or more surprised she wasn't here an hour early asking to get started."

Weiss' attempt at indignification on her partner's behalf came out as more of a smug, tight-lipped smile. "Yet another thing you can thank me for. It took her all of fifteen minutes of arriving back and telling us what was going on before she was ready to drag an obliging Yang along to the library to see if you couldn't leave 'just a little early'."

"I owe you one," Naruto admitted as he massaged the bridge of his nose. Weiss' lack of laughter did not signify an absence of amusement. She smiled and patted him a solitary time on the shoulder.

"Please believe me; I know how much of a handful that pair of sisters is. You have my deepest condolences for managing to attract both of their attention." Weiss consoled him with seriousness you'd expect of someone delivering a person their last rites. The dryness of the delivery was enough to make Naruto's eyes sparkle as he laughed, giving her a light slap on the back in the process.

"Be nice to them. You'll be teammates for your entire life." Weiss believed she had talked to more people over the years than anyone on her team. When you combined the massive volume of forced association with the exact type of people she was forced to associate with you achieved a perfect recipe for someone who could recognize a meaningful statement hidden in the innocuity. Too often did some well-off CEO spend copious amounts of time buttering her up with conversation only to then remember they had failed to introduce her to their son. Miraculously the male heir to their company was always a bachelor. Fancy that.

Weiss realized what he'd said was important to him, even if the exact specifics of why it was so escaped her. She didn't have enough information to do something as definitive as deducing the meaning behind his words. That being said she was more than confident she was well informed enough for an educated abduction. She knew that he'd been on a team prior to Nevermore. She knew he considered them his friends. It wouldn't be too much of a leap to draw from what she'd seen in his behavior to say he considered them his best friends. It might explain why he seemed hesitant to form bonds with his own team initially. Weiss didn't think that was all there was to the bizarre coldness that frosted over him at times, but it seemed probable enough that it may be a contributing factor.

She was confident enough in stating that his choice of words confirmed that his old team was very important to him. So much so that he would go as far as to say one's team is for life. That begged the question… "You'll have to introduce your old team to us sometime. I'd be interested in meeting anyone who was capable of working alongside such a handful of a leader."

Naruto snickered at the last bit. Weiss' social skill identified that it was the remark upon his leadership that amused him. Until that point… Weiss could have sworn he had been immensely melancholic when she asked about meeting his old friends. She only doubted herself because she had difficulty believing such intense emotion could be so easily swept away.

"When I came here it was under the agreement that I would never return home. Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi, and Sai… I'll never see any of them again." Naruto's wistful sadness returned in full force only to give way to sniggered laughter as quickly as it came. "But- _snrk_ \- the idea that I lead Sakura or Sasuke? Pfffft!" Naruto slapped his knee as he bent over in laughter. "I think I can count the number of times Sakura did what I told her on one hand. I don't think all the hands in Beacon would be enough to count the number of times I did what she told me to."

Weiss' mouth parted in surprise as a small girlish giggle escaped her lips completely unbeknownst to the heiress. "You? Having trouble with a woman? If such a thing were possible you'd have long since perished in our current pool of acquaintances — especially before CRDL began joining us more regularly." Really, they'd been an almost entirely female clique before that. It would be difficult to say there had been two men considering Ren's fairly unmasculine nature. That wasn't a bad thing in Weiss' opinion. It made her doubt whether or not he'd provide Naruto with sufficient male camaraderie, whatever that entailed.

"She's a hell of a woman. Feel free to ask me about her some other time. It uh… hmmmm…" Naruto scratched his head. "Not exactly sure how to explain this. I guess it helps to know someone here is thinking about her. Just knowing someone other than myself will remember her for a bit longer means something I can't quite explain."

Weiss gave Naruto the first real smile he'd received from her. There came a point where details were irrelevant when compared side by side with intent. Weiss could tell that Naruto loved his teammate in a way that Weiss may have been beginning to feel with her own. Other than Blake's general cattiness with the Schnee name at times, the only reminder of the fact that she was an heiress was left by herself. She was nowhere near as obsessed with the idea of normality as Pyrrha, not by a long shot. Still, she had found being just Weiss to be substantially more liberating than she ever would have anticipated. At that point in time, she could tell that her feelings towards her team were but a fraction Naruto held for his own team.

She felt a twinge of sorrow for Nevermore. The team Naruto considered his team for life was not in his present. His eternal team was spoken of like a memory of the past. To be barred from ever returning from his home — what did that mean? Weiss had several theories that could explain it, though none of them sounded particularly plausible. What she didn't have was time to think about it. It was for much the same reason she presumed Naruto had called their conversation to a close.

"Sorry I'm late!" Ruby shouted as she ran down the small slope towards the launchpads where Weiss and Naruto stood. Weiss and Naruto had been waiting on the cliff overlooking the Emerald Forest as they had agreed. Weiss hadn't understood how Ruby could have been late when she was ready to be more than an hour early. Gallon jugs of water in each hand were indication enough of what had happened.

"No big deal," Naruto assured her. "I figure one of the boys gave you the advice to bring some water."

"It was more like a dire warning." Ruby giggled as she set the water down by her feet, the water inside sloshing noisily about with the little room she'd not managed to fill. "Here Weiss, this is for you!" She said as she tapped one of the jugs with her booted foot.

"Is that one of the plastic containers they sell milk in?" Weiss asked, inching herself away from Ruby as imperceptibly as possible.

"Yup! I made sure to clean it out before I filled them up obviously. Even if there's a little bit of milk in the water I can always taste it." Ruby stuck her tongue out a little like the very thought of it managed to light up her taste buds.

"That won't be necessary," Weiss assured her partner. "I made sure to bring my own." She pointed to a half liter water bottle that she had set down next to her.

"That's what I said! Russel basically forced these on me anyways when I did. He bet me five lien I'd thank him for it!" A mischievous glint flashed through Naruto's eyes when he heard that. Weiss assumed that meant he sided with Russel on the issue. That didn't matter — Weiss sided with Ruby on this matter. RWBY was not to be held to the same standards as Thrush and his ilk. The thought did bring up an interesting point in Weiss' mind.

"I must admit to being rather curious. How do you train those CRDL lugabouts anyways?" Weiss questioned Naruto. Their physical conditioning had been rapidly improving considering how short a time they'd spent under Naruto's tutelage. They had been faring better in their classroom spars the past week than the week before. Well, if she discluded Winchester that is. The leader of Cardinal had been making an absolute buffoon of himself as he began to wield his giant cudgel in his right hand and use a shield in his left.

It was specifically the shield that Weiss took issue with. Winchester treated the thing like a slab of metal forcibly equipped to his arm. His team explained that she wasn't wrong in her assessment; Naruto had told him he'd be using it one day and from that point forth he was expected to do so. From her point of view, it was a needless attempt at optimization that was causing more harm than good. The improvement in Winchester's physique had been enough to keep his capability comparable to when he first began in spite of cumbersome shield that would have served better as a massively oversized paperweight than it had in protecting its bearer.

"I've just been focusing on their physical conditioning. Focusing on weapon techniques at this point would be pointless." Naruto said.

"Why?" Ruby asked. "They still aren't winning any of their spars against any of us. Isn't that because they still aren't the best with their weapons?"

"Dove is actually pretty damn good with that sword of is," Naruto responded. It may have sounded like he was defending the CRDL member, but his quick reversal rebuked that theory instantly. "His problem is that his conditioning is so damn bad that if he doesn't win quickly he doesn't win at all. You girls are either too skilled, too sturdy, or too quick for him to do much about it. Try just using your weapon against him some time, you'll lose."

"My disbelief aside, that doesn't answer Ruby's question."

"How to explain it… did you bring that oversized garden tool with you?" Naruto asked as he faced Weiss. She knew it obviously wasn't a question directed at her, as did the person it was meant for.

"War Scythes are a traditional weapon spanning centuries of use!" Ruby defended her precious baby as she grabbed it from her waist. The normally large weapon was compressed down portably into its storage mode. "Crescent Rose is a direct improvement on technology that has stood the test of centuries and you-"

"Don't care." Naruto finished Ruby's sentence. Any protest was cut off by Naruto bulldozing through it with his explanation. "So you're pretty comfortable twirling that thing around. Do you think you could use it the same way you did now if it was twice as heavy?"

"Of course she couldn't," Weiss answered for her. A courtesy gift of being Ruby's partner was knowing about the sniper-scythe almost as much as she knew about Myrtenaster. Ruby wasn't the strongest huntress where physical strength was concerned. Trying to strike the perfect balance between durable and lightweight had been a labor of love for the RWBY leader. By comparison, Myrtenaster was much lighter than Crescent Rose, so a doubling of weight would be less noticeable, yet I would still be more than enough to throw off her entire fighting style. "What does that have to do with our current topic?"

"I've been putting them through some pretty intense exercise to tone up both their muscles and stamina. So far their aura has worked like I expected it to and has been shoring up the damage as we go. There's some complicated science and biology stuff that Sakura explained to me and I'm not really good enough to explain it back. Healing with your aura isn't some super magic or anything like that, it's just stimulating your bodies natural healing process at an accelerated rate. When it manages to heal people out of a life-threatening situation it might look like magic, but you just don't die because whatever it healed didn't have long enough to kill you. I figured with that if a normal person needed to rest for a day after working out-"

"Someone with aura could just rely on it to assist with the process of cell division." Weiss finished. "That's actually quite clever. Strengthening a muscle is simply your body's natural selection at work. When you exercise the cells in your muscle begin to die if they are thoroughly strained. From there the body decides which cells to replicate, naturally choosing the ones that were able to function properly in the stressful situation to better increase its chances of dealing with such strenuous circumstances in the future."

In theory, it was more than just clever, it was genius. The linchpin holding it all together was the premise that aura didn't magically heal the body, instead speeding it through a more natural recovery. An interesting theory to be sure, but it was just that — a theory. Or was it? CRDL was a shining example of that theory put into practice. The progress their physiques had made in the past month was far beyond what would be considered normal.

How had no one thought about this? Why was no one talking about this? You would think an aura scientist in the world would have studied and published at least something on the matter. Why couldn't she recall a single study on the topic? It was a brilliantly simple thesis: Is aura's effect on injury healing or recuperative? Is it magic or a stimulation that accelerated what could already be accomplished given sufficient time and energy for the body to do so? It was easy to dismiss aura as a magical force when you saw swords and bullets bouncing off of people. Was it really?

"You understand it better than I do." Naruto laughed happily. "That's basically what Sakura told me. I just don't understand it well enough to recite it like that. I just know a lot about regenerative energy. Cardin and his team were actually an experiment I was running to see if their aura would work like mine."

"Why wouldn't it? What's different between your aura and theirs?" Weiss asked scholarly. Ruby was tragically forced out of the fast-paced conversation about things she didn't really understand completely.

"Strength and control." Naruto shrugged off the question. "My aura is more potent than the average person. Wasn't sure if things that worked for me would carry over to a more standard huntsman."

Weiss responded without missing a beat. "That is reasonable. Despite some truly ludicrous uses of your semblance I've never seen your aura meter drop below full." And as far as she knew nobody had. Some of the things he had done would have bankrupted the aura of a normal student. As curious as she was Weiss bit her tongue. Pressing further would definitely constitute defying the statute of staying out of his business.

"Ummm… hello?" Ruby interjected at the first possible lull in their conversation. "I'm still here."

Naruto grinned apologetically and mussed Ruby's hair. Weiss had seen Yang do the same action several times before as a means to annoy her sister, so why did it look like Ruby was leaning into it? "Sorry about that. I spent a lot of time studying aura before I came to Beacon. Definitely got a little carried away with my first conversation partner."

"It was an interesting conversation to have. It has given me quite a lot to think about." Weiss smiled. It had been an interesting conversation. It felt like that wasn't quite it, as if that alone didn't paint the full picture. There was more to it than a purely academic discussion.

Naruto felt warm. There were so many words that could be used to describe a person that she would have considered more apt in almost any circumstance. However, in this case, no descriptor suited him quite like that of being warm. It was silly, really. They'd had a conversation about a scholarly pursuit — something completely intellectual in nature — and yet she found herself feeling like she was wrapped in a warm, hand-knitted quilt just by being around him. Her interactions with Naruto initially had… not been the best, to say the least. Was this how his friends felt around him?

Did he consider her a friend?

"You two ready for the Uzumaki special menu?" Naruto asked. Weiss snapped out of her torpor and nodded her head.

"Heck yes!" Ruby cheered. It was apparent she was more than ready to do something that she could sink her teeth into.

"I believe _you_ ," Naruto responded, careful emphasis placed on the last word. "You may need to sit the first exercise out Weiss. I don't know if you're going to be able to do it with footwear like that.

Weiss tutted. "I assure you that many people have underestimated me due to my choice of attire. I am more than proficient enough in a combat skirt and heels for anything you'll be able to throw at me." Ruby nodded alongside her in combat skirt solidarity.

"I have my doubts, but if you say so. Let's get going!" Naruto's voice was like a call to charge into battle. There was a winding pathway down to the forest beneath that would have taken them all of five minutes to make their way to. Weiss supposed it had been too much to hope for that they'd be taking that as Naruto free jumped off the cliff. Clearly, pathways were far too banal for the NNVR leader.

 _Really, how hard could it be?_ Weiss thought to herself. _It's just a workout after all._

* * *

Weiss had smoothed out some of her rougher edges since she came to Beacon. Naruto gave her a helping hand to acclimatize with her team and then that team became the sandpaper responsible for ridding her of the more jagged parts of her personality. And yes, if anyone was wondering she did find sandpaper to be the perfect analogy for how her team had helped her. It had been coarse, rough, and altogether an annoying experience changing from her much more upscale lifestyle to living in a singular room with three other girls.

It would be gross oversimplification to say that she'd been exhausted into submission. Her teammates- her friends had done much more than just that. However, to deny that exhaustion had played its part would have been an outright fallacy. She was nothing if not resilient, thus it took weeks of ridiculously long showers by Yang, childlike tendencies from Ruby, mute indifference from Blake concerning her attempts to better her team, and lord knew how many other instances of frustration to build up her tolerance and patience. To drive Weiss Schnee to submission was a siege that required substantial resources and attacks on multiple fronts.

She liked to believe that at least. Right now she wasn't so sure. Naruto's first exercise — if one could call it that — had been tree running. She'd thought he'd said it in jest when he first told the two of them. Thirty seconds of jumping and swinging from tree to tree like some sort of monkey killed that hope before it was given any time to flourish. Weiss had done more in heels by the time she was seventeen than most people would do in their lifetime. Tree running, however, was not on that list.

The way her heels caught and snagged in branches quickly left the annoying territory, easily passing into infuriating within the first half hour. She'd hoped she would have adjusted given time enough to do so. The problem was she couldn't confirm or deny that theory due to her muscles gradual stiffening throughout the process. She wasn't accustomed to the act of tree running in the slightest. Following behind Naruto she could see that his motions were fluid and relaxed, letting as much work be done by gravity and momentum as could be allowed. By comparison, her landings and launches were jarring, putting immense pressure on her bones and muscles with each passing jump, fall, or swing.

Naruto called for the two of them to stop a few minutes after the first hour. Weiss didn't acquiesce so much as joyously agree. Ruby had fared much better than she had, though Weiss was sure that was only because this was one of the few situations in which her heels were actually disadvantageous. The path they had taken was circular so that they would find their way back to where they'd left their water. With as much composure and grace as she could muster Weiss tried to avoid looking too greedy as she guzzled down the water. Ruby wasn't any better in that regard, draining a quarter of the container's content in one long pull.

"You guys can take as long of a break as you need. I'm going to get started on the next segment, so you can join in whenever you want." Naruto told them with a voice completely unmolested by even the smallest, remotest indication of fatigue. He looked the exact same as when they'd first started the whole ordeal.

While Ruby and Weiss recuperated he dove straight into a variety of push-up variants. He started with about fifty traditional ones before spreading his arms to a smidge less than twice shoulder length. Weiss knew the wider stance was aimed at working out his shoulders. After another fifty of those, he moved on to one-legged push-ups. Seeking to add further difficulty he would erratically move his free leg in the air to force his core muscles to compensate for the motion. Naturally, when he finished another fifty he sought to do the same while switching the roles of his legs.

When he prepared to do his next set without so much as a bead of sweat Ruby couldn't resist the urge to intervene. "No more… please… my arms hurt just looking at you."

"Errr, okay?" Naruto agreed to her request. Though he listened to the request she made it was obvious he either did not understand the intent behind it or didn't care about it. In an impressive feat of physicality, he kicked off the ground from his push-up position into a full handstand. Where, of course, he began to do more push-ups. Ruby groaned as she let herself collapse onto her back in complete resignation.

Weiss was impressed with Naruto's physical conditioning. He was easily one of the most in-shape people she'd ever seen and that was what surprised her. Naruto had two semblances that completely invalidated the need for a hands-on approach to combat. Being so proficient physically seemed almost needless when he would almost certainly be more effective fighting with his sand or polarity. The fact that he'd chosen to dedicate what was most assuredly a large glut of time into learning his ridiculous sword style, as well as his training, spoke volumes about the kind of person he was.

Having gained a new understanding of his personality she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt — assuming the display he was putting on was unintentional. Obviously, when one did a handstand they would be affected by the gravitational forces of the world just like any other time. It was that exact reason that a handstand push-up existed in the first place. It allowed you to put the entire weight of your body on your arms while also working the core as you attempted to balance in the process. Simply put it was an exercise meant to utilize the effects of gravity.

Of course, there were other side-effects as well. Naruto's hair was not set in stone and strands of his hair gravitated towards the ground. The legs of his sweats had also sunken slightly lower before finding their grip on thicker sections of his legs. What had not found such convenient purchase was his shirt. It fell so low that she thought she could make out the underside of what appeared to be pectoral muscles with such textbook perfect definition it was almost laughable.

What she didn't need any imagination for were his abdominal muscles. Naruto's six-pack abs were on full, unobstructed display for the two teenage girls in his company. Weiss had often heard the term 'sculpted' thrown around to describe muscles of superior definition and tone. Having been a Schnee she'd been featured in magazines from time to time and was well aware how much touch-up was done in post as far as modeling was concerned. She'd assumed that sculpted abs were a mere fabrication of photoshop made by the media.

Maybe she needed to revise that theory.

It was being made plain that abs could, in fact, be sculpted with sufficient work. So if that was the case then the muscles in his six-pack expanding and contracting — balancing his body as he moved steadily up and down — was the sculpting. She in no way thought of Naruto romantically, but one did not need be in love with an artist to admire his art. At present, it felt like art was a fairly apt description.

Weiss had to shake herself from such lurid thoughts as she regained her senses. Naruto clearly didn't notice or care about what was going on as he focused on his training. _This is fine. Nothing about this is weird. The only way things will be weird is if one of us makes them weird._ Weiss assured herself. That thought gave rise to a shot of panic — what was Ruby doing? If Naruto caught her staring that would be a level of awkward she was unequivocally unwilling to deal with.

When Weiss looked over she had to take her reflexive reaction and murder it quietly and without mercy. Ruby was a deer caught in the headlights as she watched his rippling abs at work. That was natural, she was fifteen years old, not nine. A healthy interest in a person of the opposite sex was completely and totally acceptable. That was the logic Weiss was desperately trying to convince herself of, but the idea just wouldn't take.

When she saw Ruby's lips purse, the reaper's tongue licking them unconsciously, Weiss decided to adopt a Rubyism. _Nope!_ Weiss immediately came to the conclusion it was time to shut this down. "Naruto." She grabbed his attention before it could stray to her partner. "Ruby wanted to ask if you'd be alright with coming to our dorm for a game night of sorts. Your team is welcome to come if they want."

"Sure. As long as I don't have anything I need to do I'm fine with that." Naruto answered without so much as slowing his pace. At the very least it had the desired effect on Ruby, breaking her from her trance as she snapped to.

"You'll come? Really?!" Ruby gushed excitement as her eyes lit up.

Naruto's familiar chuckle was was slightly different given his state of misdress. Yet another factoid that Weiss would have been more than content not knowing was how well laughter could be seen in the muscles as well as heard. "You don't need to act so surprised. When is it? I'll do whatever I can to make sure I'm free."

"Ummmm… now?" Ruby asked/informed him nervously. Naruto blinked, processing the information he'd just been given. Normally Weiss wasn't one to just spring such an event on somebody, but if it got her out of explaining the events of the day to Yang by distracting her with a party then she was more than willing to make Naruto pay the price of keeping her occupied. After all, it was entirely his fault there was anything awkward to explain in the first place.

"Works for me," Naruto agreed with remarkable ease. "Not like I'm getting much out of this workout anyways. Way too light for me."

Part of being a member of team RWBY had been learning to budget her limited supply of annoyance towards things that actually mattered. Because of that Weiss was too relieved that his shirt was once again covering his body to bother being annoyed at his inadvertent insult that they weren't in shape. She wasn't near the point of collapse or anything so dramatic, but Ruby's water jug was beginning to look far more tempting than it should have. She took her victories where she could find them as far as Naruto was concerned.

"Really? Like right now?" Ruby jumped from the ground looking prepared to semblance her way all the way back to Beacon.

"Down girl," Naruto laughed as Ruby's expression deflated into a pout. "Let me kick by my room and see if anyone on my side wants to join. Is this happening at your dorm?" Ruby nodded vigorously. "Then I'll meet you there in an hour with any of my team that wants to go."

Weiss let the scene unfold without any further input. She was more emotionally drained than physically by the end of their 'light training'. If things stayed the course she resolved to pull a Blake and find a nice corner of their room to quietly be ignored in. This whole ordeal had been far more stressful than it had any right to be.

* * *

 _Well, that was pointless_. Naruto grumbled to himself as he made his way back to his room. He didn't mind spending time with girls from RWBY, he just wished they had suggested their little event in the first place. He'd failed to work up a sweat and the exercise he did was poorly tailored to helping them develop in any substantial way. In the end, the whole outing had felt rather pointless.

He could afford a small bit of grumpiness primarily because he was walking alone, having decided to take a middle of the road pace. Ruby bolted back to her dorm at a breakneck pace, leaving rose petals in her wake as she went. Weiss, looking completely and totally spent, opted to wait at the launch pads for a few minutes to recharge. Naruto's sensible jogging pace left him in a league of his own.

 _It could have been worse. Weiss and I got on pretty well. That's a win. Ruby seemed happy too._ Naruto rationalized. Maybe he was being a bit too uptight. They were just kids. It wasn't normal here to move from one life or death battle to the next. He was a weapon forged under unimaginably intense heat and pressure, they were not. They hadn't seen friends and loved ones die because they weren't strong enough to do anything.

He almost lost Hinata in the fight against Nagato. He almost lost her again when she tried to protect him from the ten-tails. The only reason he didn't was that Neji protected her, giving his life in the process. If he'd been stronger he could have stopped Nagato from ever killing Jiraiya and maybe saved his life in the process. If he'd been stronger Guy-sensei wouldn't be living out his life in a wheelchair. Shikaku, Inoichi, and countless others all dead because he'd not been strong enough to shoulder the weight.

Never again. He vowed to never again allow the people around him to suffer because of his weakness.

A growl inadvertently slipped past Naruto's lips as he drew closer to his dorm. He forced himself to calm down as he emptied his mind of those thoughts. He'd been over them thousands upon thousands of times only to resolve himself to the same path each and every time. There was no point torturing himself with it any further. This world was to be his vacation from such responsibilities. A chance to waste time with inefficient training with friends. He didn't need to train from dawn to dusk because whatever war Remnant was in was not his to get involved in.

He'd managed to clear out the cobwebs in his mind by the time he made it back to his room. He wasn't sure if any of them would be there to ask to the party. For all he knew Nora would keep Ren awake and training until he mastered the technique. He felt a little bad for subjecting Ren to that, but only a little. Call it small revenge for the difficulty he'd been given by his teammate in the beginning, even if Rens' wariness was warranted.

Unfortunately, his good mood had been swept out as well, caught in the crossfire. Naruto caught a lucky break when he opened the door to his room. The first thing he saw was Ren, collapsed onto his bed like a puppet whose strings had been cut, his orange haired partner poking him to verify he was alive. Naruto's happiness was reignited, albeit more self-satisfied and superior than it'd previously been.

"What's up? Why aren't you training?" Naruto asked his near-comatose teammate.

"I know, right?!" Nora voiced her loud agreement. "We only got four hours in before Mr. Lazybones started whining about how exhausted he was!"

"Only four hours?" Naruto sandwiched his cheeks between his hands in faux shock. "I guess if that's all he's capable of we'll just have to wait for him to recover."

"I know..." Nora agreed glumly.

"It's tragic, but we'll just have to wait that much longer before I can try and teach you the super-special technique." Naruto threw himself onto his bed, laying on his back, crossing his left leg over his right. His fingers laced relaxedly behind his head. "I really wanted to teach it to you too. Oh well, guess there's nothing that can be done about it."

"Rennnnnnn!" Nora whined as she shook him, rocking him left and right as she tried to flip him onto his back. Ren was obstinance given human form as he stubbornly dug his face even further into the mattress.

"I hate you." Ren groaned just loud enough for Naruto to hear him through the muffling of his comforter. Raising his voice any louder would have been far too much effort.

"Hey, in my book someone who hates me is just a prime candidate for friendship." And boy was that truer than they knew. He'd had to almost break his fist on Neji's chin before they transitioned from enemies to friends.

"You have my word that the first person getting punched when I get this technique down is you, _friend_." Ren seethed rather toothlessly. Threats were much less effective delivered when you were functionally immobile on a bed. Was it just him, or had Ren been getting more and more sassy recently?

"Oooh oooh!" Nora's perked up as she dove for Ren's nightstand cupboard, opening it and withdrawing something from its depths. "Speaking of friends, somebody left you a letter!"

"Who?" Naruto asked. "And why was it in Ren's nightstand?"

"Well it wasn't sealed, you know," Nora's eyes shied away from Naruto's as she focused on the latter half of the question. "So I thought, you know, would it _really_ hurt anyone if I snuck a peak? I mean, if I did I could even tell you who it's from right now."

"How benevolent of you," Naruto deadpanned as he snatched the letter from Nora's hands. "Thanks for keeping this safe, Ren."

"You can thank me with a clear shot later."

"I give you my thanks, I give you a way to get stronger, and this is the thanks I get?" Naruto groused playfully as he opened the letter.

 _Naruto,_

 _I desire to thank you for asking me to play with you in class. If your dance card isn't already full, why don't you join me for dinner tomorrow night so I can express my gratitude? We have a great many things to discuss in depth with each other. Meet me at Le Palais De Vale, I've secured a reservation for two, my treat. I hope you will reciprocate and treat me with your company._

 _Cinder_

"Well now." Naruto smiled. A smile was an expression of joy. The one Naruto wore was no different. That didn't mean all joys were the same. The happiness he'd been getting from the kids at Beacon was like a soothing balm. That happiness was exactly the reason he'd decided to come to the academy in the first place.

His current smile expressed a very different facet of happiness. Cinder's letter was like an iron poker stoking the darkest flames of his soul. His desire to face an enemy and triumph was a hard-coded need in his very DNA. It was the smile of a colossus facing down a kitten who fancied herself a tiger.

He wasn't here to solve this world's problems. He was here to relax and enjoy himself after a lifetime of hard and thankless work. So if his goal was to have fun… why not oblige her?

* * *

 _ **Thank you all for reading! If you wish to support me go to**_ ** _p a treon . com (slash) Faulkner to do so. I'll probably have F &C Chapter 2 up sometime this week for people to read there. See you guys next time!_**


	26. You Lose!

_**Greetings and salutations! Chapter 25 of OFNT on Sunday as promised! I knew it was smart not to commit to a time for the release! Thanks to my delay I get the pleasure of announcing that we have officially reached one-thousand followers! Can't say I saw that coming, but damn is it welcome. Thanks for joining me thusfar everyone!**_

 _ **A bit longer of an AN this time, primarily just to chat with you all about the last chapter. Not going to lie, I wasn't particularly enthused about the last chapter either. It did what I needed it to, set up what I wanted to set up, and as a tool it functioned. It just wasn't that interesting and I know that. I feel like my illness forced me to release subpar work if I wanted to keep my schedule. In the future, I will not feel pressured to release on time if acts of god don't make it feasible. That being said I am incredibly happy with this chapter. So if you don't like this one, then it is completely my fault XD**_

 ** _Someone just started reading my story today and left a comment on chapter five or something that essentially said Naruto wouldn't get along with Cardin because the dude was a flaming racist. My giggles turned to maniacal laughter as I remembered the solid two or three chapters of basically only CRDL that I wrote a few months ago. If you got this far Jose, Ha! Fooled ya!_**

 ** _With that being said, I wanted to let those who have not begun reading Fox and the Cub know that production has begun in full swing. The series has been financed for around biweekly frequency. If any of you wanted a fic of mine to contain Jaune you can feel free to head over to that one and enjoy._**

 ** _That's enough of that! Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you to chapter 25 of An Old Fox's New Trick. See you next time!_**

 ** _Coverart by Moonlight_**

* * *

 **Chapter 25**

 **You Lose!**

Yang was sold. She wasn't the kind of girl who needed much of a reason to be down with throwing a party, and yet she'd been given three. First and foremost was that Ruby was the one throwing the party. It was a hodgepodge of sisterly affection and the weird maternal instinct that came with practically raising the girl at times. Yang wanted to see the things Ruby put her mind to go well. When you threw in the fact that Naruto was coming it was just adding oil to her fire.

She'd had fun flirting with him the first week of school or so. After the field trip to Forever Fall, the dude just ghosted out on all of them for awhile. Of their not so little clique there were people looking for him with way more zeal than she was willing to put in, so why bother? She probably could have strong-armed him into a session of chilling with her personality being as forceful as it was. It just wasn't what she wanted. She'd come to Naruto on the field trip, now he'd come to her.

That had been Yang's approach until the docks. She didn't get hit as hard as some of the others by Naruto's self-stabbing. He'd been right when he said Blake had been reckless. She couldn't say she wouldn't have done the exact same thing in her shoes, but that was different than saying he was wrong. A little blood wasn't exactly anything to fuss over either. People got injured. Doing it to yourself was just a sign that you were nuts.

It was the clash of ideals that rubbed her wrong. You could debate whether Naruto was a pragmatist or a cynic. You couldn't debate that Ruby was an unflinching optimist. At least she had been. Ruby's pure beliefs were faced with something much colder and darker than they ever had been that dark and stormy night. It would have been much easier to accept if Naruto was evil, but he wasn't.

Yang didn't care for all that complicated crap. All she knew was that Ruby had been hurt and it was her job to keep her sister safe. So when Ruby finally went to spend time with Naruto Yang made sure she wasn't going alone. It wasn't like she hated Naruto or anything — she actually liked the dude a lot when he wasn't in one of his moods.

He was fun, laid back, and a real smartass. The few times they'd hung out he spent it talking and not perving on her. She couldn't even remember the last guy friend who laid a hand on her without a very particular and obvious agenda. Naruto was more likely to slug her on the shoulder playing around than to cop a feel. Some might begrudge her for the pathetically low bar she used to judge boys her own age. In her defense, they'd more than earned it.

Still, that didn't mean she was going to risk him traumatizing Ruby again just because she liked him. That made the fact that he was going to show up to this party both a surprising and compelling reason number two. The third reason took much less explanation than that.

The party was in their room.

"Sorry we took so long," Naruto apologized after having knocked and been allowed entry into the RWBY dorm. "A certain somebody was being a real wet blanket so I had to go and collect her myself." He said as he shot his redheaded partner a meaningful glance.

"I was training," Pyrrha countered. "Shouldn't my leader, not to mention partner, be encouraging me?"

"I'm encouraging you to be less of a stick in the mud. You're welcome." Pyrrha scowled as Naruto deliberately looked elsewhere.

Yang was pretty pleased with herself to put things mildly. Ren had told her that Naruto had begun training their team of his own accord. Everyone who interacted with him said he seemed more relaxed than he'd been leading up to the docks. It wasn't like she had some grand psychoanalysis of who Naruto was or anything. It just wasn't hard to connect him getting pissy with him feeling the need to teach people and being forced to show his powers. He'd sworn her to silence that day at Forever Fall after revealing yet another unexplainable ability independent of his two semblances. Yang took that as a pretty clear indicator that the topic of his abilities was a no-fly zone.

"This is awesome!" Ruby cheered with a smile as wide as her tiny face could hold. "We're actually all hanging out together!"

"We have lunch together almost every day," Ren said, deflating the reaper for just a moment.

"Yeah, okay, this is totally different! Hanging out at school is something you do with classmates. Hanging out here… I dunno…" Ruby's voice awkwardly trailed off.

"It's like we're friends!" Nora beamed as she threw herself onto Weiss' bed. "Which, we totally are! Why'd it take so long for us to do something like this? I blame our leader!"

Naruto growled as he grabbed a desk chair that had been pulled out for extra seating by Ruby beforehand. "You ask me to train you and I say yes. You ask me to come to a party and I say yes. How is this my fault?"

"General unapproachability," Ren answered as he took a seat on the ground next to Weiss' bed.

"As our leader shouldn't you be organizing the events instead of just approving them?" Pyrrha asked as she took a similar position to Ren's, except at Naruto's side instead. Yang found it precious how much of a puppy the combat prodigy was for her partner. Then again, she was only a prodigy by their standards. Naruto operated on an entirely different scale.

"A great leader knows how to delegate properly," Naruto gave one of his pretentious nods of enlightened wisdom. "Also, a leader did organize it. Technically."

"What do you mean, _technically_?! I am a leader!" Ruby fumed as she beat her tiny fists against Naruto's arm. With practiced ease, Naruto dropped his hand atop her head and rustled her hair. Yang snickered at the motion she was all too familiar with doing herself. Ruby hated it so much she would sometimes use her semblance to escape. Any second now…

Or not.

Why was her adorable little sister — a sister who had loathed Yang's own head pats for years — rooting her feet to the spot with a poorly concealed goofy smile? Yang's eyes narrowed in concern as a sisterly bonding session concerning what was transpiring moved to the top of the list of things to be done at this party. It only ended when Naruto removed his hand from Ruby's head. Ruby continued to wear her emotions on her sleeves; doing an even worse job of hiding her disappointment. Yup, it was definitely time for a sister-sister talk.

"I'm a little surprised you agreed," Blake looked up from her book to Naruto. As per the norm, she was occupying her usual position on her bed. "I didn't think you were the partying type."

Yang decided she had played enough of the wallflower for now and jumped into the conversation. "And you are? Does that mean you'll paint the town with me next weekend?"

" _I_ didn't have much of a choice. It was engineered by my team leader in our room." Blake said. When she caught the hurt look on Ruby's face she added. "Not that I'm totally against it. It just isn't something I'd normally do."

"Damn," Yang swore. "What about you, Foxy? Care to go clubbing with a friend?"

"I'm going to have to agree with Blake here. Last time I went to a party was something called a rave. That was more than enough clubbing to last me many lifetimes over." Naruto grimaced at the memory.

Yang couldn't help but laugh at the idea of Naruto at a rave. "Hard to imagine someone who didn't even know how to group message at a rave."

"Really Blake? You had to tell them that?" Naruto glowered at the faunus, causing her nose to be buried slightly deeper in her book. "Like I said, it wasn't my thing. A friend said I was too much of a downer and dragged me there himself despite my myriad of refusals."

"So all I need to do is be more persistent? I can do that." Yang gave him a sultry wink.

Naruto shook his head, a sad expression played across his features momentarily before being shoved down. "It was an old friend's final request. As much as I wanted to I couldn't find it in me to say no. Bee was a real persistent guy." Naruto chuckled at the memory of his friend.

He hid it fast enough that it looked like some of the group hadn't caught on to the subtext. A long-term friend didn't make a final request unless they weren't going to be around to make any more. If she was trying to be positive that could have been because Naruto intended to head to Beacon and this Bee guy thought they'd never see each other again. If she had to place a bet on what she thought it was… this Bee guy had probably passed away.

"So I'm a little out of touch with what to do at a party," Naruto admitted with a smile to warm the atmosphere. "Where are we starting?"

"Here!" Ruby dashed across the room. In one of the few vacant spaces in their crowded room, she'd managed to secure a TV and place it on the floor. An old gaming console had its wires wrapped around the side and plugged into the back with two wired controllers at the ready. "Play this with me!"

Now that was funny. The others were probably falling for Ruby's innocent little girl act, but Yang knew better. Her little sister had chosen a fighting game that she'd played far more of than she should have. Yang probably would have stopped her if not for the noble purpose that drove her to such great lengths. That being kicking their Uncle Qrow's face in the next time he visited and challenged them to a round. Ruby never managed to beat Uncle Qrow, yet that only made her practice more and more over the years.

So Ruby challenging him at the game was her way of beating him at something. The two had never faced off in Goodwitch's class, so it wasn't like she had lost a fight to him or anything. After hearing he trounced Pyrrha, someone who regularly kicked most of their butts, it was assumed Naruto was the hardest match of the first years. After his exhibition with Cinder, it was more like everyone just considered Naruto's victory in in the ring a predetermined fact. Yang had tried to figure out how the hell to beat him for a few hours and every plan she'd come up with involved catching him unrealistically off guard and slugging him with her semblance flaring.

"I've never played a video game before. I pick things up pretty fast, though." Naruto took a seat on the floor next to Ruby. Yang had already been convinced it was going to be a massacre. Seeing Naruto awkwardly try and grip the controller until Ruby took pity on him and physically forced his hands to the proper position.

Ruby booted the game up with a mix of childish glee and vindictiveness. "What about the rest of us?" Weiss whispered into Yang's ear. The blonde grinned at her.

"Plenty of snacks, drinks and board games if you want to do that. I'm watching this." Weiss fixed her with a questioning look, to which Yang responded. "Watching Naruto get obliterated? I don't care if it's just a video game, you couldn't pay me to not watch this."

Weiss regarded her curiously for a few seconds before her face settled for an expression that could only be described as smug. It appeared that she too wished to see Naruto knocked down a peg, positioning herself next to Yang with a clear vision of the screen.

Ruby animatedly explained the rules to Naruto. It was an arcade fighter type game. You picked a team of three characters and fought them against each other. That's how Yang would have explained it at least. Ruby had studied the game so much in her attempts to beat Uncle Qrow that she talked almost as passionately about it as weapons. The small girl inundated Naruto with information about leads and anchors, hitstun and how it decayed the longer combos were, along with any other information that happened to cross her mind. Everyone apart from the excited reaper could tell all her information was going in one ear and out the other.

"Why don't we just play?" Naruto suggested. Ruby was all too happy to oblige, directing Naruto to some recommended characters that were on the easier side of things. Though it became clear once they got into the game that it wasn't going to do him any good.

Ruby's lead was a witch who filled the screen with projectiles. That was already obnoxious enough to deal with as it was, yet the developers had decided to give her a super ability in which she created a mirror image of herself and copied everything the witch did from the other side of the screen. Ruby activated the super immediately upon getting into the game and filled the screen with projectiles. Naruto's ability to play the game went as far as his ability to parse together that the joystick on the game controller would let him move. His lead, Wolfman, was dead within eight seconds of the game starting.

Not to mention Ruby's witch was one of the only characters with a super that let her build back her super meter while she did it. So when Naruto's next character came in it wasn't like things got any easier. It really was game balance at its finest. In under thirty seconds, his entire team was wiped out and the game displayed a singular world in golden letters.

"Perfect?" Naruto asked, completely shell-shocked.

Ruby took that as a request for information. Whether she managed to misinterpret it so bad due to childish naivete or a desire to drive her victory home was something Yang wasn't sure of. "It means that I beat your entire team without taking any damage."

"You suck!" Nora jeered from the sideline. Yang could make out that Ren had a pleased smile from his position against the wall. Similar expressions of satisfaction could be seen on almost everyone in the room.

 _I guess everyone wanted to see him knocked down a peg._ Yang mused. Her sister was uncharacteristically merciless as she asked Naruto if he wanted to play again. The NNVR leader agreed, muttering how he would do better this time.

The only thing he did better at was losing in a more spectacular way. Ruby switched in her second character in a midair combo and used a glitch in the game that let her use the same three moves over and over again without building any hitstun. The less technical way of saying that was Naruto's Wolfman couldn't do anything unless Ruby dropped the combo. She didn't, Wolfman died a pathetic death to finger lasers and dive kicks, and she proceeded to wipe up the rest of Naruto's team in much the same way.

They went again and again without rest or pause. It should have made for a boring start to the party, two people playing a video game while the remaining six watched, but there was a building excitement as the game went on. The cheers for Ruby to beat Naruto reversed when Naruto was established as the lowest of underdogs. Then it became a contest for him to just land a single hit on her. Yang, Nora, and Pyrrha cheered Naruto on as he attempted to get a single hit off. No matter the effort of Wolfman and friends, Naruto just couldn't do anything to stop that golden perfect.

As much fun as it was to watch Naruto ram his head into the total wall-out of Ruby's projectiles over and over again, Yang decided to offer an olive branch. "I'll fight you next, Naruto. I'll let you knock out my first two characters so it's 3 on 1 to balance things out."

"Ok, I can do that," Naruto said, assuring himself more than anyone else. Ruby reluctantly handed her controller to Yang as they returned to character select screen. Since her first two characters were going to die anyways she didn't spend any time selecting them. The only thing that mattered was her last character — the half-demon swordsman.

As promised Yang let Naruto beat her first two characters without so much as a button input. As her second character uttered their last words Yang clutched her controller tightly in her hands. The second her swordsman came in she inputted a down-heavy and his sword came crashing down on Wolfman's head. Something Ruby hadn't done — primarily because she'd had no need to — was pop her juice. There was a sort of comeback mechanic built into the game that grew stronger the fewer characters you had remaining. So with only one character left…

Yang's swordsman picked up Wolfman from the ground and popped the juice to cancel that action, allowing her to take him into a furiously brief combo. Within three in-game seconds, Wolfman had fallen to her blade. Within ten seconds more his entire team joined Wolfman in his shallow grave.

"Eh, better luck next time champ." Yang thumped Naruto on the back with her fist. Naruto's eyebrow twitched as his mouth twisted into a silent snarl. That was the face of a man not used to losing.

"Me next!" Nora grabbed Yang out of her spot and took the controller for herself. With that, each and every person took their turn beating Naruto. After Nora went Pyrrha, then Ren, followed by a reluctant Blake, and finally an even more unenthused Weiss. Surprisingly even the ice princess was able to beat Naruto consistently, though at least he managed to get a character or so into her roster before invariably losing.

It was actually the jumpstart of the party. Naruto's struggle to win a single game was background entertainment to the conversations that broke out. Weiss was having her ear chewed off by Nora while Ren and Pyrrha discussed some new training they were doing. Blake was repeatedly spamming a projectile move that shot a mechanical cat animal in a straight line as Naruto struggled to jump over it. Ruby was over the moon at how well things had accidentally managed to go. In line with her top priority, Yang took the opportunity to corner her little sister.

"Things turned out pretty well. Good job Rubes." Yang congratulated her leader. God, it always felt weird remembering that Ruby was her leader. The girl who had followed her lead practically their whole childhood

"Thanks," Ruby answered with a smile. Her eyes watching their group and the good time they all were having. Well, maybe Weiss was struggling to keep up with Nora's tempo. Hey, five for six ain't bad.

You didn't spend your whole life with someone without having an idea of why they did what they did. This party was Ruby's way of trying to get everyone to come together as friends. RWBY and NNVR spent plenty of time together and they got along just fine. It was just obvious that each of the members got on better with their own teams more than anyone else. Ruby wanted them all to be friends outside of class. That's why they were having this little party.

As far as Yang could tell it was working. Blake set down her controller to relieve a grateful Weiss from being the sole focus of Nora's attention. With no opponent, an incredibly bitter Naruto went and sat down next to Pyrrha and Ren and joined their conversation. A singular sentence from Naruto was enough to make Ren look like the one who had swallowed the bitter pill while bringing a grin to his own face.

Yang caught Ruby staring at Naruto a little too obviously for her liking. "See something you like?" She teased her little sis.

Ruby predictably flushed brought her fist down on Yang's arm. It wasn't a hit or anything like that, rather a sisterly way of telling her to cut it out. "I just don't understand how this Naruto and that Naruto are the same person." Yang's face took on a darker tint. "I keep looking to see some hint of who we saw that night and… I just don't know."

"It's probably complicated," Yang whispered as she rubbed her hand lightly across Ruby's back.

"You guys said that someone didn't become like… like that without something bad happening." Ruby's voice had also dropped to a whisper. One more timid and worried than Yang's had been.

Yang knew what she was talking about. On the night they'd made their plan to help Naruto someone had said something like 'people don't resort to extremes until other methods have failed'. Knowing Blake's past it sounded like something she would have said. Yang didn't remember and she didn't disagree either. She wasn't on Naruto's side on this, but the man probably had his reasons for doing what he did. Yang had wanted nothing more than to wring the answers out of him after that night. She only restrained herself because she knew it would only make things worse.

"Everyone has things in their past they don't want to talk about. Naruto probably went through some really bad sh-tuff on his missions." Yang toned down her language around her sister out of habit.

"I know," Ruby answered miserably. "It's just… that means his past was bad enough to make what he did seem okay to him. It means it's hurting him…" Ruby paused for breath as she searched for the right words. "I just don't see it hurting him at all right now. How can something be so bad at one point and not even matter the next?"

Yang fell silent as she tried her best to think of an answer that would help her sister. Yang, joker that she was, knew that this wasn't something to brush off. "Do you still miss Summer?"

Ruby's eyes widened. She shuffled her feet awkwardly as she looked down towards them. "Yeah. Sometimes I miss Mom more than others."

"But you weren't even thinking about it until I brought it up, right?" Yang asked. When Ruby nodded she continued. "Sometimes things that are ancient history can still take their toll because of how much they mean to you. That doesn't mean that you're thinking about them all the time. I've certainly got things in the past that I'm never going to forget — never going to forgive."

"Yang." Ruby's voice was firm as she gave Yang a side-hug. Ruby had long since moved past the fact that Yang had almost gotten her killed. Just because her sister had forgiven her didn't mean Yang had forgiven herself. There were some things that you just couldn't forgive yourself for no matter who absolved you.

"Hey, don't you distract me." Yang grinned as she used her shapely hip to bump her sister off of her. "My point was that there are some heavy burdens that just don't show up all the time. You're not seeing it because right now it's not showing itself. That doesn't mean it's not there, it's just not bugging Foxy right now just like you missing Summer. This party is a win, Rubes. Right now you've helped keep his mind off it by surrounding him with friends. That's good enough."

"But that doesn't mean anything is fixed!" Ruby's voice was almost loud enough to alert the person in question what was being discussed. Thankfully for them, Ren managed to grab Naruto's attention with some question Yang couldn't make out. Ruby's breath caught in her throat as she realized what had just happened.

Yang mussed her hair and gave her a reassuring look. "Some things can't be fixed. I know that you want to help him," Yang added as Ruby looked ready to cut her off right there. "I do too. It's just not something we can rush. When we lost Summer Dad couldn't get off the couch for weeks. You were pretty much the same locking yourself in your room." Ruby tried to escape Yang's grip only for said elder sister to stop messing with her hair and pull her into a side-hug this time. "It was a hard time. I don't blame you at all. My point is that no matter what I did you two only started moving forward when you decided to do it. I'm all for giving Foxy a hand; you just try and stop me!" She flashed Ruby a toothy grin. "But if it's Naruto's past that's hurting him the only thing we can do is give him a present that helps him move past it. He'll only get over it when he decides he's ready to."

Ruby closed her eyes as her head tilted towards the floor. She took one breath. Then another. Then one final breath before she exhaled all three out at the same time. When she opened her eyes the tepidity that had once occupied them had been expunged. The silver orbs now radiated confidence and commitment to her path.

"You're right. Thanks, Yang." Ruby returned Yang's hug so sweetly that she almost swooned. Ruby used to look up to her like she knew everything. As she grew older it wasn't like they weren't still close as can be, rather it would be accurate to say she grew more independent. Yang missed playing the doting older sister to the needy little sister sometimes. "Wow, you were, like, an older sister right there."

 _Ahh, cruel fate. Why must the best things in life be so brief?!_ Yang theatrically despaired. Not one to be attacked without retaliating Yang fastened her grip on her sister's hip and furiously rustled her hair with her other hand. Ruby quickly turned feral as she whined and flailed in an attempt to escape. "Oh come on, Rubes. You were practically a purring Blake when Naruto did this to you. What's the matter? Do mine not feel as good?"

There were two responses to her words. On one front Ruby froze, instantly becoming completely docile. An icy glare boring into Yang's body as it attempted to meet her eyes (a satisfaction she had no intention of granting them) meant a certain kitten was less than pleased with Yang's use of her name as a substitute for cat. When you took into account the priorities of an older sister one of those was clearly more important than the other.

"Ruby?" Yang asked in a low, rumbling voice. Gripping her little sister even closer towards her as she tried to meet eyes with anyone who would help her.

"Yang… crushing… lungs…" Ruby forced out. Yang wasn't buying it. Ruby was pretty crafty when it came to using her slight appearance to manipulate others. Yang knew exactly how tight she was grabbing.

"I hope your lungs are the only things crushing. Nothing to tell your dear older sister about any other crushes? Hmmm?"

"Okay! Really crushing my lungs now!" Ruby confessed with quiet urgency as Yang's grip tightened. A quick look shared between the two was all Ruby needed to get the message that this wasn't getting dropped. "It's embarrassing!"

That was not what Yang wanted to hear. "Is your first crush really that embarrassing?" Or was it the fact that she liked a guy Yang had hit on? She wasn't exactly sold one way or another on the blond; maybe she'd go for him, maybe she wouldn't. She definitely wasn't into him enough to compete with her own flesh and blood for him. Oh, how she wished her sister's first crush had been someone safer!

"No! That's not it!" Ruby denied as adamantly as she could while keeping her voice down. "It's just… no! It's too embarrassing."

"More or less embarrassing than me asking that question just a little bit louder?" Yang's smile was filled with teeth, yet had no warmth. If the rapidity in which Ruby's face drained of color was any indication it had served as a valid threat.

"I… I…" She started. Yang pressed her on silently with her eyes. "I just like the way his head pats feel, okay! You were right!"

Yang's brain failed to compute the information it had been provided. She'd said that as a joke, not a serious guess. As unnerving as it was to hear her sister say she enjoyed having her head caressed by a member of the opposite sex, it was still better than hearing she liked the most dangerous boy in Beacon. She liked Naruto, she really did. He was just not the boy she wanted her baby sister to whet her appetite for a whole host of reasons.

"See?! I told you it was embarrassing!" Ruby's face was a near ruby red as she looked more peeved at Yang than she'd been for quite some time.

 _Whoops. Made a mountain out of a molehill here._ Yang chastised herself. Honestly though, she probably would make the exact same decision the next time something like this came up. It wasn't like her sisterly protectiveness was going to wane over time. That didn't help her with what she considered the unreasonably intense glower that Ruby was giving her. When it rains, it pours. Yang didn't have time to defuse the situation, but she got the next best thing.

A distraction.

"Really? You?" The sound of Weiss' incredulity was more than enough to shake the sisters from their current topic.

"Now that's just mean." Naruto chuckled.

"You have to admit it is a little surprising." Pyrrha agreed.

Rationalizing that Ruby's current agitation was more likely to fade than fester, Yang released her grip on Ruby and embraced the new conversation. "What's so surprising?" She asked as she walked towards the group that now consisted of everyone else but the presently reading Blake. Yang was pleasantly surprised her partner had made it this long without returning to her book.

"Apparently the thought of me going out for dinner deserves its own inquisition." Naruto joked.

"It is the location at which you intend to dine moreso than the act itself." Weiss corrected him. "Can you even pronounce its name?

"Le Palay... dee Vale?" Naruto finished unconfidently. It was hard to tell if that was due to him thinking he messed up or Weiss' grimace halfway through.

"Close, it's Le Palais de Vale." Pyrrha corrected him softly. That was pretty damn surprising if Yang did say so herself. That place was basically the dining experience reserved only for the biggest of wigs. She'd heard that even the rich and powerful had to properly secure their reservations in advance for that place.

What was less surprising was Weiss' less than generous attitude towards the bastardization of high society. "Close? The only word he got right was 'le'! He couldn't have messed up 'Vale'. He's a complete philistine!"

"Words hurt you know." Naruto rolled his eyes, clearly unhurt by Weiss' 'hurtful' word choice.

"Can we come?" Nora asked excitedly. Yang laughed heartily. Not at the request, rather Weiss' full body shudder as she imagined the excitable girl at a place of fine dining.

"Sorry, not my place to invite anyone." Naruto apologized as he placed his hand on Nora's head. Yang didn't fail to note how she too seemed more than content to allow Naruto's head pats to continue. She couldn't tell if that made her feel better as it was more likely Ruby was telling the truth, or worse because it was true her little sister enjoyed being physically stimulated by-

 _Nope!_ Yang saw where her brain was exploring and turned it around completely. She was not letting herself think those thoughts. That way lay only pain and madness.

"Well, obviously," Weiss stated like Naruto had said that fish lived in water. "You need connections to even hope to dine at Le Palais de Vale. I'm sure we would have found out by now if you were some sort of real estate tycoon or a politician's son."

Yang was becoming quite proficient at catching Naruto's brief expressions. It was a good way to tell what he was thinking, what he was feeling when he so often kept those things pretty close to his chest. The brief amusement at Weiss' words had Yang wondering if maybe the heiress had inadvertently hit the nail on the head. It was hard to imagine Naruto as some well-off son of a political figure. If he wasn't, why did he find Weiss' words so amusing?

"You're right," Naruto admitted. "I was invited. Didn't even know it was a fancy place until Weiss flipped out."

"I did not 'flip out'." Weiss protested indignantly.

"What's this? Does Foxy have a date?" Yang teased him with a waggle of her eyebrows.

"Something like that."

Yang imagined the reactions in the room were pretty much a dead ringer for how people would react to a bomb going off. You had the people who found it interesting but didn't really care in Ren, Blake, and Weiss. You had those who were bummed by the news consisting of Ruby and herself. And finally, there were those with mouths agape in abject horror. It was no big shock that Pyrrha was firmly slotted into the last category. What was a bit strange was the fact that Nora had joined her.

"What?! Don't tell me Velvet got the jump on Py-" Nora didn't even get halfway through Pyrrha's name before the spartan lunged to cover her mouth.

"Nah, I just hung out with Velvet yesterday. She probably wouldn't come to dinner if I asked her. She has her own team to consider."

Yang couldn't decide whether it was more tempting to enjoy the comedic effects of Naruto's harem-protagonist level of density or attempt to beat it out of him. Velvet and Pyrrha were locked in the most overt of covert warfare over the NNVR leader. A fact that he somehow managed to remain completely oblivious to. She knew men were pretty fucking dumb when it came to things like this, but come on! Really?

"So who are you going on a date with?" It was Ruby who asked. For what she'd said about not having a crush on Naruto she looked a little too concerned for Yang's liking.

"I said 'something like that'. It isn't a date." Naruto clarified. The visible relief on Pyrrha and Nora's faces was almost enough to make Yang burst out laughing. "I'm pretty sure she just wants to... feel me out."

"No!" Nora shouted her protest. "Nonononono! _Cinder_?!"

Pyrrha unrelaxed just as quickly when Naruto failed to offer any denial. Yang couldn't blame her for that either. Cinder didn't look like a girl to put out on the first date. It would have been more accurate to say it was more likely she'd take Naruto than be taken herself. He may have been a combat genius, but it was clear that didn't help him understand women. She'd come off pretty damn strong in Goodwitch's class.

"Is she your type?" Blake asked from her position separated from the rest of the group.

"Kami, no." Naruto groaned. "It isn't a date. We're both just trying to figure out what the other wants."

"Sounds like a date to me." Pyrrha huffed.

"If you both want the same thing does that mean you'll — how to put this delicately — do business? You know, the oldest of businesses?" Yang teased suggestively.

Naruto was thoroughly exasperated at that point. "It. Is. Not. A. Date!" He growled. "My best guess is that she wants to see if we can work together on a project she's starting. An invitation I have no intention of accepting." He added on after receiving multiple questioning looks.

"Is this some sort of business deal?" Ren asked. "The wording you're using makes it sound like she wants to join with you for some sort of corporate venture."

"That's actually not too far off the mark. I'm pretty sure we both work in a similar niche, just on opposite sides of the fence."

"If you have no intention of accepting her business proposal why bother attending?" Weiss asked. Her surprise that Naruto was in some sort of business in addition to being a huntsman was palpable.

"Hmmm… What's the best way to put it?" Naruto asked himself. The corners of his mouth pulled upward to make an expression akin to a cat hoping to catch a canary. "I guess you could say that I'm hoping in the process of winning me over to her side I can win her over to mine."

* * *

Pyrrha's day had been going pretty spectacular. The precise control needed to manipulate the iron dust wasn't something she was used to doing with her semblance and offered a challenge in its own right. She'd spent the entire day trying to develop that kind of fine control and resting to replenish her aura. One of the things she wanted to try most was to see if she could use her semblance to fly on a disc as Naruto did. Aerial superiority would be invaluable against grounded grimm and arguably even more useful at catching their flying counterparts.

It was tempting to just try it as soon as she started to get a handle on controlling the iron dust. Pyrrha resisted her desires and continued to focus on the fundamentals of controlling the dust. It was better to develop a solid base work before moving onto the more complicated structure you wished to build upon it. If you didn't then you risked a fall. And in this case, the fall would be quite literal.

From there Naruto picked her up from the training room she'd been occupying, declaring she was going with them to a party. Despite her protests that she wanted to continue training she found herself being literally dragged along until she became complicit. Something she had no intention of admitting to anyone ever was the strange enjoyment she got from being completely overruled. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. Pyrrha was surprised at how wide an umbrella that saying cast. Years of people being completely permissive around her had given her an almost deviant taste for the alternate forcefulness.

The day had taken a turn about midway through the party. She did her best to enjoy the conversation, snacks, drinks, and other festivities that went on throughout the rest of the event. That didn't prevent her thoughts from repeatedly snagging on the hook of the issue she was facing.

Naruto was going to dinner with a woman.

Before that the highest position had been Velvet, being the only one to successfully get him to go out to Vale. Even that had only been possible due to the pretext of Naruto needing to forge some weapons. It didn't matter what Naruto said; going to a high-end restaurant with a woman who so shamelessly flirted with him in front of an audience was by all definitions a date. Not that there was anything she could do about it.

"I'm surprised you even have clothes for an outing this high class," Ren commented as he repeatedly filled his hand with aura and then emptied it. Pyrrha had also taken to making morphing geometric shapes out of her dust as means of additional practice. Neither were as efficient as a full-blown practice session. That didn't mean they weren't worth doing.

"Pretty sure it won't fit with Vale's idea of formal. Worked well enough where I was from." Naruto replied from behind the bathroom door. Any weirdness involving talking to a teammate who was in the process of getting naked had long since faded in their team. The process of all of them changing was generally a thirty-minute affair with all the holsters, weapons, clothes, and in Pyrrha's case armor they needed to put on, strap in, and secure. If time was a useful approximation, it seemed that Naruto's formal clothes were quite the hassle.

"Well enough?" Ren asked. "From what I've heard about their reputation I'm not sure 'well enough' will be enough."

"Have a little faith." Naruto's amused voice was muffled as it sounded like something had covered his mouth. "Stupid hat."

 _A hat?_ Pyrrha wondered silently. It was considered common courtesy to remove your hats when you entered a premise. There were also very few hats that were considered acceptable for high society to begin with.

"Alright, now to just wrap this stupid thing…" Naruto grumbled. "Aaaand done!"

With that, he opened the bathroom door and strode out. He'd been right on the money in Pyrrha's opinion. His clothing was definitely not of a type she was familiar with, but it was undeniably regal. He had donned a robe that was entirely his usual shade of orange with a single white stripe above his waist in the form of a neatly tied sash. Layered above the robe was something like a formal version of a white cardigan. An equally white scarf was layered multiple times around his neck and when joined with the white fringe of his hat.

The hat was easily the most fascinating thing about the entire ensemble. Keeping with the color theme it was predominantly orange with a white, triangular section near the front. Within that white section were orange markings that looked something like two boxes stacked atop each other with three diagonal lines ascending on the right side. Naruto had told them that he spoke another language, so Pyrrha presumed that the symbol meant something in his native tongue. The very hat she'd doubted would have its place in a formal setting had a very pronounced effect.

It made him look like a leader.

It was a tricky way to describe it. He'd always had the feel of a leader to Pyrrha, even before he'd first taken control at initiation. Now that he looked the part it was hard to see him any other way. She was honestly mesmerized. So much so that she was unable to react when he quickly made his way to the door.

"We can all talk about whatever you think of my getup later. I'm not exactly sure when I'm supposed to be there so it's best to be early. She could have stood to be more specific than 'tomorrow night'." Naruto complained as he exited the room with haste that suggested he believed they'd stop him if given the chance.

With the door closed behind him, Pyrrha was still in a bit of a daze. If she'd had to describe her own condition she would have likely used the term starstruck. A perfect adjective for someone trying to process the sight of something they found dazzling.

It was Nora that broke the silence with a wolf-whistle. "Wowzer! Our fearless leader sure cleaned up nice!"

"I was a bit worried when he mentioned having a hat." Ren chuckled. "It really does look to be an incredibly professional means of dress. At the very least it makes his claim that it is in no way a date more believable. That wasn't the type of attire that you'd wear to impress a woman."

 _It isn't?_ Pyrrha doubted Ren's words. She'd certainly been impressed. Maybe a bit more than that if she was being honest with herself.

"Still, just uck." Nora stuck her tongue out in disgust. "Why'd you let this hussie steal a march on your man?!"

"Bwuh?" Pyrrha incoherently responded. "W-what do you mean?"

"Nora," Ren scolded his partner. "You're supposed to pretend that you don't know. It's the polite thing to do."

"Really? Still? Pretty sure there's only one person in Beacon who hasn't figured it out."

Pyrrha felt a sense of mounting dread. "Figured out what?"

"Nor-" Ren was quickly cut off by an unstoppable Valkyrie.

"That you like-like Naruto, duh!" Nora stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world. To be fair, it pretty much was to everyone except Pyrrha and Naruto. Through some truly impressive mental gymnastics, the spartan had actually managed to maintain the belief that she was being subtle about her affections.

"I.. well I mea- it's just that…" Pyrrha's voice tapered off into nothingness.

"Nothing to explain!" Nora grinned happily at her. "I'm most definitely a member of the Firefox camp!"

"Though I can't believe I'm getting involved in this conversation," Ren prefaced with a look of shame on his face. "Considering Yang's semblance has something to do with fire that's a pretty ambiguous pairing name."

Nora stared at Ren balefully. "You just had to point that out, didn't you? I spent so long thinking of that name and then you come in and ruin it!" From that point, it descended into something of a harangue on Nora's part. Any attempt Ren made to defend himself only provided further fuel to his partner's tirade.

"You knew?" Pyrrha asked, her voice tinny and meek. She successfully interrupted Nora's verbal assault despite her voice being so much quieter.

"You're a very straightforward person," Ren responded. His polite way of saying that she had been incredibly obvious. "Everyone except Naruto has known for some time. I believe if the beans were going to be spilled they would've been by now. I wouldn't worry."

That was only part of what Pyrrha had been worried about. As immature as it may have been, she was nervous about the idea of anyone knowing about her affections. Velvet finding out had been more of a matter of necessity than desire. Pyrrha had been afraid of being judged? Made fun of? When she put any logical thought into it she wasn't exactly sure what she had been so nervous about. She didn't believe that any of her friends were the type to do something like that — a fact clearly being demonstrated at present.

"You're okay with it?" Pyrrha asked timidly. She couldn't even make sense of what she was saying. It felt like her inner child had taken full control of her ability to speak.

"Okay with it?!" Nora cackled. "I've been waiting for you to come clean to me since, like, forever!"

"At the risk of coming under attack once more, she didn't tell you. You just came out and admitted you knew the whole time." Ren said.

"Pssshhh! Semantics!" Nora waved him off.

"Most definitely not a semantics thing." Ren stood his ground. It didn't take more than a twitch in Nora's jubilant expression for him to sigh and hold his hands up in surrender. Say what you would about Ren; he was a man with firm understandings about what battles were not worth fighting.

"So, what are you gonna do?" Nora asked eagerly, stars shooting through her eyes.

"What do you mean?" Pyrrha asked cluelessly.

Nora groaned so gutturally that RWBY could probably hear it from their dorm. "About Cinder?! We can't just let those two go to dinner together! Dinner in the evening at a fancy restaurant is as much of a flag as you can get!"

"Flag?" Pyrrha asked, just as confused and out of the loop as she had been prior. This time it was Ren that groaned. He looked exhausted enough to sleep then and there at the mention of the word 'flag'.

"A flag! You know?" No, she didn't. A fact that Nora was soon able to deduce. "It means this night is the first step on the Cinder route! We must prevent it at all costs!"

Pyrrha guessed Nora meant that it meant Cinder and Naruto would start dating. She shook her head, both at Nora and the thought. "Naruto said it wasn't a date. I trust him." And she meant that.

"Yeah, okay, trust the teenage boy with a girl that talked in nothing but innuendo during their first meeting." Nora snarked. "But come on! Even if you trust our leader to the ends of the earth that he doesn't consider it a date can you _really_ say the same of Cinder? Just because he doesn't think it's a date doesn't mean she doesn't. What girl flirts with someone, then invites them to a fancy schmancy restaurant and doesn't think it's a date?"

Pyrrha was reluctant to admit that Nora had a point. She'd thought she'd done a decent job at hiding her affections, yet Nora said they were clear as day to everyone. That meant it was just as likely that he'd misgauged Cinder's intents for the evening as well. A candlelit dinner at the beautifully set tables of Le Palais de Vale had far too much ambiance for a casual working dinner! Through Nora's words, Pyrrha began to psych herself up.

"What can we do?" Pyrrha asked her teammate. The orange-haired girl's smile turned vicious as her shoulders heaved with silent laughter.

"Well here's my idea…"

* * *

Cinder had just received confirmation from Mercury via scroll that Uzumaki had departed from Beacon. She rolled her head in a circle, stretching her slender neck as she began to prepare herself for his arrival. She had planned this night forwards and backwards, accounting for any and all variations with contingencies so innumerable they bordered on redundant. Planning ahead had always been a specialty of hers. Tonight she intended to use that specialty to its fullest.

Lifting her finger languidly into the air delivered the desired effect almost instantly. "Yes, Madam?" A waiter bowed his head to her.

"I've just been informed my guest will be arriving shortly. Please make sure the host knows to escort him to me upon his arrival."

"Yes, Madam." The waiter responded, only lifting his head from its bowed position when it was made clear that was all she wished for. A lesser woman wouldn't have seen the small hints of irritation dotted across his face. The man's sense of professionalism had been offended by what he considered a superfluous request. It was not something Cinder would regret or apologize for.

It was often said that good help was hard to find these days. It was a sentiment that had her wholehearted approval. As functional, even occasionally useful as Emerald and Mercury were she often found herself forced to micromanage them in order to guarantee the proper results expected of those who represented her. As such, she felt no pity for offending the staff of this restaurant by suggesting they may be incompetent. Experience had taught her to expect no less.

Her habitual swirling of the glass of wine in her hand was another symptom of that method of thinking. She had watched the wine be properly decanted before it was poured into her glass, rendering the aerating action needless. Not all places took such proper care in the pouring of their alcohol, thus it had developed into a common practice whenever she drank. At the time she was doing little more than the occasional sip, having not even made it halfway through her first glass. An inebriated slip of the tongue would not be tolerated tonight.

Naruto Uzumaki. The more she looked into him the more interested she became. Investigating him had been similar to trying to look through a dark body of water in the night; no angle she approached him allowed her to see any deeper than the surface. Blind as she was to what lay beneath the water's depths Cinder was becoming progressively more convinced that treasure lay on its silted bottom.

She'd taken care to question Beacon students who had no connection to Naruto for any and all information concerning him. To a dullard it might seem foolish to seek information about him from those who knew him least. In reality, it was those people that you wished to start with every time in order to form an opinion. In addition to being unlikely to report back to Uzumaki about her inquiries, those who didn't know him could provide her information about events that had happened with little to no emotional bias. When you wish to learn who a man is, start with those who have seen him act without interacting directly.

Through that questioning, she'd learned that Naruto had been a frequent sight on the sparring floor in combat class. Aggregate summation approximated his mandatory sparring participation at somewhere between three and four times the typical student during the beginning of the semester. She'd also learned that very recently his class sparring had become a thing of the past. Goodwitch had ceased to ask him to spar in any capacity for at least a week.

That was confirmation in her theory that Ozpin was wooing Uzumaki. The constant sparring had been a probe into his powers. Their cessation said that they had discovered enough. That either meant they had confirmed he was worth looking in to or confirmed he was not. After crossing blades with the man, Cinder had no doubt as to their conclusion.

While some may consider these speculations Cinder viewed them as facts. She trusted the lethal combination of instinct and logic she'd honed over the years. She had reasoned out that they were facts, her gut told her they were facts, so she accepted them as facts. Beacon wanted Uzumaki. She wanted Uzumaki. The only mystery was what Uzumaki wanted.

He'd warned her off his territory after their spar. He'd as much as told her not to align her will against his own. _You would lose_. Those implied words had run rampant through her mind a hundred times more than whatever he'd actually said. Not only had he somehow divined her presence as an adversary within days of her entering the school, but he had the flagrant disregard for her abilities as to claim any contest against him to be futile. True or not — which it was most certainly not — it demonstrated a confidence in his skills that could not be ignored.

Her thoughts were swallowed with a sip of wine as the same waiter from before approached her. "Madam, it appears that your guest has arrived. He's being escorted here as we speak."

"Thank you." Cinder dismissed him as she looked towards the room's entrance. The restaurant she had picked was not so tawdry as to warrant a VIP room or anything so pedestrian. That wasn't to say they didn't have accommodations for guests seeking to enjoy some privacy with their meal. The establishment was more than accustomed to providing for the well-to-do seeking to mix business and pleasure. In accordance with the desires of their clientele, they had several rooms which were closed off for all but a singular door. The soundproofing in the walls guaranteed that once the door was closed all interactions within were impossible to overhear, ensuring one would not have to rely on the discretion of the staff to keep their secrets.

At the time being the door was left open. Cinder had no need for private conversation with the waitstaff after all. As soon as the emptiness of the doorway crossed her mind she found it occupied by a man cloaked in orange and white. It took her normally alacritous mind a moment to process that it was Uzumaki who had entered. She could hardly blame herself — he bore more resemblance to a foreign dignitary than a student of Beacon. Foreign though it was, his clothing and his motion in it carried far more nobility than she'd expected.

She couldn't help but applaud him for his magnificent, and most assuredly intentional use of his attire to put her off guard. A ruse she would not allow to come to any sort of fruition.

"I hope I didn't make you wait long," Naruto said as he sat down in the seat across from her the waiter had pulled out slightly upon his arrival. She had been waiting. Not that she had any intention of informing him of that. She had arrived early to make sure everything would be exactly as she wished it to be. Cinder had actually gone so far as to request a smaller table than what had initially been put out for them. A means to make sure they shared close and intimate proximity should the need arise.

"Not at all," She lied. "I've just arrived myself. I must admit I'd been kicking myself the whole day when I realized I didn't leave you a specific time. My sincerest apologies if that caused you any undue stress."

Naruto's gaze hardened slightly, though not overly much. "Really? I'd figured you purposely left the time unspecified to gauge my interest in the conversation. Maybe you believed you could tell more about me based on the time I arrived?"

 _Well isn't he just fascinating?_ Cinder purred mutely to herself. She hadn't done it to gauge his interest, though he wasn't wrong in the assertion that she'd purposely left it blank in order to determine something about him. Her actual motive had been to see how excitable he was. Arriving too early would give her the impression he was tactless; it would remind her that she'd failed to give a time and could drive her to guilt for making him wait for her. Too late would mean he cared not for offending her. He'd arrived at half past six almost to the minute. A perfect middle ground between the two options. It gave rise to the belief that he was a man used to dealing with meetings such as this.

Finding out that he was both conscious of manipulations such as that but also found them distasteful? A merry accident.

"I wouldn't say that I'm that devious." Cinder gave a tittering laugh as she compulsively swirled her wine. "Though I'll admit, you're not completely off base either. Would you like something to drink?"

The waiter stood at the ready to take any drink order that Naruto might request. It proved needless as the blond shook his head a singular time. "I'll pass. An old friend said it was possible to get drunk off nothing but water and conversation if the conversation was good enough. I get the feeling that tonight's conversation might be satisfying enough to prove him right."

Cinder saw the same grin she'd seen the first night she'd bumped into that girl, and by proxy him. It was the grin of a predator, a hunter, one who sought to dominate his quarry. She had no illusions that right now she was what he hunted. The thought didn't make her anxious, rather it brought her peace of mind. Nothing was more easily manipulated than a man whose intentions were worn on his sleeve.

She returned his smile with one of her own. Whereas his was aggressive, hers was inviting. Inviting him deeper into her web in which she would ensnare him. "I have to agree with your friend. I find myself slipping into the atmosphere already."

She would claim him. He would serve her agenda. If not? Tragic as it was he'd need to be crushed. She found herself hoping it would not come to that. He was both the most frustrating and interesting thing to enter her life since she set out on this damning quest. It would be a shame to lose such an amusing toy.

* * *

 ** _I really enjoy writing Cinder's POV. It fills me with some sort of sick, sadistic joy as I know she really would underestimate our protagonist by such a ludicrous magnitude. For anyone who has ever been trapped in a Morri-Doom hell, I'm so sorry for your loss. Soul fists and hidden missiles are the enemies of fun. For anyone who is able and willing I ask you to go to_** ** _p a treon . com (slash) Faulkner and support this story. If my pa+reon doesn't keep trending upward I will be forced to stop writing both fics due to time constraints. Thank you for all the help and support of my patrons thus far, you guys are helping me out a ton._**


	27. Needs Must

_**Greetings and Salutations! Welcome to the belated release of the 26th chapter of OFNT! To the eagle-eyed observer, you may notice that's because this chapter is a bit longer than usual. I had a lot of notes to hit here and wanted to make sure I got everything I needed to before cutting the chapter. I'm personally satisfied with how this chapter went, though it does drag on for a bit.**_

 _ **I've learned to develop a thicker skin over the course of writing this story. There are plenty of valid criticisms that I've learned to bear a bit better than I had previously. That being said, I'm feeling a bit nervous releasing this chapter. I wonder how much flame I'm going to get.**_

 _ **Fuyuriku and those who might care, I've decided to start capitalizing the Kages as a proper noun from here on. Fixing is in all the chapters I've already done it in is far too much work. So going forward feel free to yell at me for failing to capitalize Kage when referring to the Kage of the Elemental Nations.**_

 _ **For those of you who wish to support my work please go to**_ ** _p a treon . com (slash) Faulkner and help out. I'm going to keep the weekly upload schedule so long as it continues trending upwards. Call me a sellout, I'll aspire to be the QTPie of the fanfic world._**

* * *

 **Chapter 26**

 **Needs Must**

It's been said that you can learn a lot about someone from how they treat the waitstaff. "I'll take something salty, just not a meat. A fish prepared to be savory instead of sweet would be preferable. I'd like my sides to be vegetables, though I have no particular preference as to what you choose." Naruto lodged his rather peculiar request with the waiter who jotted it all down diligently.

"Tsk tsk Naruto," Cinder simpered amusedly. "Why torment the poor man like that? Give him an order, not the details of your palate."

"I believe I'm giving the establishment its deserved compliments. If I ordered myself then it would be like saying I knew food better than they did. Better to give the details to the professionals and let them make sense of it." Naruto nodded politely to their waiter to dismiss him from the room. The waiter bowed once more and made his way out, closing the door behind him. "It's important in life to know where your talents lie."

Cinder lifted her legs, crossing her right leg over her left. Naruto may not have been able to see the way the motion parted her crimson dress beneath the table, but imagination was often the most compelling aphrodisiac. "And where do your specialties lie?"

"Goodness, how direct!" Naruto's tone was puffed up and pretentious, mockingly so. Cinder stifled the impulse to crease her brow. "I'm a warrior by trade. It wouldn't be wrong to label it as my specialty."

 _Not wrong, yet clearly not right. Is that what you mean to suggest?_ Cinder pondered his words. They were still well within their opening moves. Right now was all about controlling the flow of the conversation. Naruto clearly wanted her to ask what he meant by the turn of phrase 'wouldn't be wrong', so she would avoid that.

"You struck me as a man that might appreciate directness. I thought you might find such earnest interest… desirable." She tasted the word seductively on her tongue before letting it ooze like decadent chocolate from her lips.

Uzumaki didn't flounder. She did not believe him so vapid to succumb to something as simple as that. A hitch in his breath before he spoke proved the effort wasn't wasted. "Hard for me to say. At the very least I can say I'm not one to bother tip-toeing around when I can go straight through."

Somehow she doubted that. She knew that he knew this was an invitation for them to get to know each other for... less than personal reasons. Tonight they would probe each other for information, draw their lines of allegiance — if only malleable ones in the sand, and most importantly see where the other fit into their plans. Cinder had no doubt that Naruto Uzumaki had plans. Gauging what those plans were was part of what this night was for.

"To blazing our own trails." Cinder extended her glass. There was a brief flash of emotion on Naruto's face that she couldn't identify as he clinked his glass of water against her wine.

"And finding new paths," Naruto added as he drank from his glass.

Cinder nursed her glass of wine as she explored Naruto's eyes. The best thing to do when given a statement that was ambiguous was to find the intent behind it. Finding new paths could mean joining forces on a path, maybe warning her off the path she was on. The words could indicate a separation by which both parties would need to search for a new way forward. The words themselves meant something. The quandary lay in finding out what something they meant.

For that Cinder would normally need to excavate through a person's facade to find what really lay beneath. It was something she launched into out of force of habit. Cinder paused, her glass resting still in her hand. She was a woman of decisive action, so why was she so hesitant in that moment? That was a simple question; people hesitate when they find themselves in a situation they don't understand.

Naruto's earnest smile — a mix of comforting pity and bright hope — was enough to check her advance. It was something that made absolutely no sense to her.

"There's always another path, you know?" Naruto took advantage of the silence and offered the statement to her, his eyes far too knowing for her comfort. "Sometimes you can find yourself given a choice you never expected to have again. It can be difficult to take advantage of opportunities you've convinced yourself will never come again."

Cinder felt uncomfortable for the first time in their conversation. His words were spoken like he knew her, his eyes felt like they penetrated her soul. This topic warranted a tactical retreat. "Too true. I wanted to play with you in our spar much the same way it seems you wished to play with me. Perhaps that was a bit childish of me. I could have ensured things ended differently if I seized the initiative before you began to take me seriously. Maybe next time."

Naruto's amusement peaked at the end. The blond didn't even bother concealing the laughter on his lips as his mouth widened and his eyes danced. "Quite possibly. Hopefully, we never have to find out."

And Cinder relaxed once more. Many would find it odd that she would relax at what was essentially a threat. Horrifying as it may seem, it is easy to find comfort in what you know. Most people's lives were filled with such stagnant and purposeless idleness that they recognized such a relaxed state as comfort. Not her. Her home was deep in the den of conflict. His words were pleasant enough, but communication was far more than words.

'Hopefully, we never find out.' Were the words of the threat. Specifically, the mirthful condescension which Naruto spoke them was what added the edge to the otherwise peaceable phrase. Cinder was confident in her ability to read people, and that meant she believed Naruto didn't want to fight her. It was also clear he wasn't afraid of her. A mistake on his part to be sure, yet it was a mistake that substantiated the idea his bravado was no hollow bluff. Either Naruto Uzumaki was capable of besting her or, a scenario that was much more probable, he merely believed he was capable of doing so. Uzumaki had no idea the extent she'd restrained her power.

Understanding everything about what he'd said meant that she no longer had anything to gain by staying on the topic. Naturally, that meant it was time to move the conversation along. "On that, we agree." She ceded simply, ending the momentum of that line of conversation. All that was left was to create a new one. "I must admit to being curious why a person like you enrolled in Beacon in the first place? Forgive me for saying so, but you seem more like a huntsman playing student than the other way around."

"You're pretty much spot on," Naruto admitted candidly with a wave of his hand. He lowered it after the gesture, brushing it against his stomach, a small twist of his wrist before he brought it down to his side. It was unnerving to Cinder how readily he offered privileged information. "I was a full-fledged huntsman where I came from. When I left my home to come here I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. My life was filled with training, work, and responsibilities heavy enough to warrant a nice break. When I was forcibly relieved of all of that I wasn't ready to jump right back in. So here I am."

Cinder blinked. She was experiencing the stupefaction of giving someone far more credit than they deserved. "You enrolled at Beacon to vacation?"

"Pretty much." Naruto grinned at her cheekily.

Cinder thought she'd sat down against a grandmaster only to find out that he was class C. Was that it? He was just some washed up huntsman pretending to be a student for some R&R? Words could not express the severity of her disappointment. Uzumaki had demonstrated that he was an exceptional fighter, but that was it? Had all her worries about his perceptiveness only been a false hope for excitement that was not to come?

Infiltrating Beacon had been easy. Building the White Fang through recruitment had been easy. Every part of her plan had been charted long before she took her first step into the academy and it was all going seamlessly. The only time she had encountered the most minute iota of a setback had been when Roman had lost a shipment of dust to a combatant he claimed was the strongest he'd ever seen. A man Roman claimed she'd need to adapt her plans to encompass, less they detonate in her face. A man who'd appeared to glean her aims for Beacon when no one else had.

A man who could challenge her.

"So what brought about your challenge?" Cinder asked with irritation that had not been there two minutes ago. "Were you protecting your stomping ground?"

"It's like I don't even have to talk. You understand perfectly!" Naruto was still grinning. Cinder wanted to reach across the table and throttle him with his scarf.

All of the wasted time and effort investigating him? Pieces fell into place that she couldn't make fit before. How could Uzumaki have made her? Nobody knew about her plans, not even Ozpin. There was no way some student — magnificent fighter, huntsman, ex-huntsman or whatever — could figure them out when she'd concealed them from the actual foe she intended to face. Treating his challenge as nothing more than a ridiculous show of machismo to maintain top dog status in his class explained everything.

 _What wishful thinking._ Cinder admonished herself for her foolishness. Her plan against Ozpin had proceeded so smoothly that she had found herself wishing for one exciting element. When she combined Roman's testimony, Uzumaki's fighting skills, and his inexplicable warning it made an amalgamation she absurdly misconstrued as the blond being far more important than he was. He was merely another exceptional fighter she had to account for, much like Nikos.

"And since it's my 'stomping ground' as you put it, I'm going to need you to give up whatever you have planned for it."

Cinder's heart skipped a beat as Naruto's genial smile chilled her blood. She laughed audibly at herself and the situation, playing it off as amusement at his words. Uzumaki had the most coincidental phrasing she'd ever heard in her life. "Please believe me, I have no intention of taking your position of top dog in class."

"What a relief." Naruto snarked sarcastically. His tone was biting as if he was annoyed with her. Most likely a negative reaction to her refutation of the position he so coveted. "Shockingly," Naruto's tone suggested that whatever he was about to say was anything but shocking. "That wasn't what I meant. I was talking about whatever terrible thing you have planned for Beacon."

Cinder had a serious case of mental whiplash. Her opinion of Naruto had been high, then plummeted below ground, only for it to catapult up to double her original estimate as she tried to find her balance. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean." Was all she could manage to say. By any standards, the words sounded obviously stilted.

"I'm not sure either. Assassination? War? Finding the other half of that power you've buried away inside you?" The lilt of Naruto's voice belonged to someone who was discussing celebrity gossip over breakfast. "Kurama has you pegged for all three. I figured you a bit more conservative; you'd try to complete that power of yours and call it good enough. Feel free to tell us. We're curious."

 _Very._ A voice emanated from inside of Cinder's head like a demon emerging from a gaping maw in the earth. Fur brushed softly across her bare shoulders as something nested itself on her shoulders. Two rows of sharp white teeth cracked open to surround her neck gave her a much more pressing maw to worry about. Eyes as red as blood stared into her own once more in mocking victory.

 _When? How?_ Cinder's thoughts were a complete mess as she tried to piece together how she'd been mated to effortlessly. The fox had not been with Naruto when he entered the room. Regardless of how he attempted to conceal the animal within his outfit, she would have noticed. Her brain worked in overdrive to answer that question until a firing of synapses connected two points in time together.

When she'd fought Naruto he had brought his hand to his stomach and twisted it. From that action, a small raccoon had appeared and he was able to control sand henceforth. He'd raised his hand earlier, right before aggravating her. Had that been a deliberate ploy to lower her focus?

"When I told Kurama that he wouldn't be able to just waltz into a place like this he actually volunteered to be sealed so I could smuggle him in. Might mean nothing to you, but trust me and take it as a ringing endorsement."

 _Locked up in that insipid school for months and you expect me to let you monopolize what little fun there is?_ The deep, sonorous voice retorted. The smooth end of one of the fox's fangs brushed against her neck. _Not likely._

"Come on Kurama," Naruto chidingly scolded the fox. His lighthearted mood juxtaposed with the now life or death situation Cinder found herself in to create a surreal sense of intimidation. "I've hardly seen you around the past few weeks. If I'm locking you up in school I'm doing a pretty damn poor job of it."

 _It's the principal._ Kurama sniffed haughtily. The fox's mouth didn't move throughout the entire conversation, its teeth always at the ready.

Cinder refused to let herself panic any more than she already had. She wasn't dead yet. That meant there was a deal to be struck. She'd quickly accepted the fox was sentient and even more quickly deduced he was the stick to Naruto's carrot. Any moment now...

"Alright, we've proven our point," Naruto spoke like a parent telling their child they'd had enough ice cream. "Give the poor girl some breathing room before you frighten her into shock. We've still got plenty to discuss."

 _Perfect._ Cinder thought to herself. Now came the negotiations. She had less intention of running away now than she did when she'd concluded Naruto was nothing more than- well, that didn't matter anymore. Her estimation had been grossly off and she was paying the price for it. It was nothing she couldn't handle. That's what she'd thought until the fox voiced his clear opposition.

 _So you say. I believe that people are significantly less problematic when you take away their ability to breathe._ A single fang pierced through her aura with a crack and the skin on her throat, drawing blood.

Cinder's fight or flight instincts almost seized control of her body. Her iron will was the only thing that stood in its way, and it was enough. "I'm not against a well placed threat or two myself. You should consider your threat delivered before you leave any more obvious signs that can be noticed by the staff."

Naruto's brow creased. Good. She'd put him on the back foot by not matching the atmosphere of the room. "Kurama, seriously," Uzumaki spoke from across the table. Cinder didn't blink, and yet somehow his next words were spoken into her ear as he disappeared from her sight. "Cut it out."

Cinder had no idea how Uzumaki managed to get behind her or why he'd done so. One of those details was cleared up as he lowered his hand down to her shoulders. He grabbed the fox by its scruff without attempting to remove it from her shoulders. A twist of his hand was all that was needed for Kurama to fade out of existence as he loathingly glared at the blond. Cinder didn't allow the relief she felt to surface, instead smiling politely as she twisted her head to look behind herself.

"I appreciate it. I would skip the blood the next time you want to intimidate someone in a public space. Whether I remained complicit and helped cover it up or used it to prove to the staff you assaulted me it only serves to make your position worse." Cinder critiqued as she wiped away her own blood with her hand. Disposable napkins would have been easy enough to hide, unfortunately, all they'd been provided with were napkins made of cotton.

"Here, let me get that." Naruto held his hand against the puncture in her neck. It wasn't deep or debilitating, more annoying than anything else. His hand lit up on the outskirts of her peripheral vision. The reddish-orange hue surrounding his hand felt suffused with power against her skin.

It didn't take more than a couple of seconds for him to withdraw both his hand and the power surrounding it. While he returned to his seat across from her she felt compelled to feel the wound. Apparently, it was no longer accurate to call it a wound as it was no more. "Impressive. Is that some sort of healing semblance? Or maybe a different ability entirely?"

Naruto sighed as he retook his seat. "Not really an ability or a semblance. I simply took our auras and applied it to the puncture. Your body did the rest."

That was an interesting topic that Cinder took note of before filing it away. She'd consider it a subject of fascinating discussion most any other day, with most any other person. Right now it didn't even rank on the long list of items to converse with him about. First and foremost…

"I'm amazed that you managed to find me out with so little time and so few vulnerabilities in my organization." Roman was the only person that came to mind that could have given him some information. Cinder had recognized that and only given the thief the bare minimum of information needed for him to accomplish his tasks. His uncertainty of her plans served to keep him in line and minimize the impact of any potential betrayal.

"Didn't even know you had an organization. Figures, I guess." Naruto sounded surprised. It wasn't the surprise of someone who found they'd threatened the leader of an army of disposable soldiers with resources to match. His surprise was more on the level of one finding out the pulp free orange juice they'd ordered would better be described as medium pulp. "I really didn't do anything special. Any idiot with my skills would have been able to figure you out immediately."

"Skills you've no doubt cultivated over your years. What gave me away?" She asked. As she'd suspected they were easily moving back towards conversation centered around themselves. A topic most common for two parties about to strike a deal. She continued to calm herself in the aftermath of what had transpired, preparing for the negotiations to come. Letting a near-death experience upset her balance would only hurt her capacity for it. That was unacceptable. Cinder needed her full capabilities to deal with the man before her. She would not underestimate him, not again.

* * *

When she looked at it as a whole, Pyrrha would say that she'd much rather be normal than famous. That didn't mean that being famous didn't have its perks. La Palais de Vale was not the kind of place where fame alone was enough to cinch you a table you had not reserved. Even if it was, Pyrrha wasn't _that_ famous. An arena fighter and cereal mascot were in a different league than the politician that was going to help shape the laws that determined what taxes would impact your business.

Le Palais de Vale was more than a building, it was the people who worked it. Whenever you introduced a human element there were always ways to bend the rules a little bit. A member of the staff had attended one of Pyrrha's fights with his daughter. The young girl had become more than a bit of a fan after the first-minute knockout Pyrrha had dispensed to her opponent in the form of a bell ringer with her shield. She'd met them both at the meet and greet afterward. For an autograph on a picture she'd taken with the two of them Pyrrha had received an open invitation to the Palais come rain or shine.

Making sure a lascivious woman didn't sink her claws into her partner wasn't how she'd intended to use that favor. _Needs must, I suppose._ Pyrrha thought to herself in disappointment. She'd began to suspect her dinner here would involve Naruto, but this wasn't the involvement she had hoped for.

When the spartan looked across the table she found herself infected. A smile crept up on her, relieving some of the pressure in her chest. Nora's eyes were as wide as saucers her head cartoonishly darted around to speed up the pace at which she could drink in the sights of the restaurant. Ren had been nowhere near as excitable as Nora, though he was still far more interested than Pyrrha had ever seen him before. His usually still eyes were much more active, sideways glances at various fixtures of ornaments having been a regular occurrence for the past five minutes.

"This is amazing!" Nora's cheer was so great that it earned a warning look from Ren. The male member of NNVR was incredibly self-conscious about their surroundings.

"It is incredible. The drinks here feel more dressed up than I am." Ren admitted as he smoothed out his tie in an attempt to make his school uniform look as presentable as possible. He eyed the crystal glass flute they'd served his sparkling cider in critically.

Pyrrha giggled as Ren continued to compare himself to his ornate glass. "You don't need to worry so much. There are plenty of upper-class families that send their spares to huntsman academies to make a name for themselves. An academy uniform is actually one of the least questionable things you can come in. Nobody can question your taste of fashion since you weren't the one to choose it."

"How petty," Ren remarked dryly as he wet his throat with a small draught of the cider. "Some of the finest meats are aged in mold. You would think the people who could afford such things would know not to judge based solely on appearances."

Pyrrha blew a strand of her hair that had fallen into her face towards the side to disguise her sigh. "Some do, some don't. It isn't like everyone who comes here is like that."

"You and Weiss aren't!" Nora assured her teammate before her face scrunched up. "Well, you're not."

"Weiss isn't _that_ bad." Pyrrha insisted against the siege of Nora's disbelieving stare.

"Her combat clothes look nicer than anything I own. What the heck would she wear to a place like this?!"

 _I'd rather not think about it._ Pyrrha had no problems admitting that to herself. Considering how ridiculous some of the top percenters she'd met had been, Weiss was actually tame in comparison. The money some people in the circle of high society spent on fashion was absolutely ludicrous. Pyrrha had paid less for top of the line, custom made, full armor sets than other girls her age had spent on a singular dress. Her hesitation towards spending may have been a side effect of growing up on the more normal side of the wealth spectrum. This dinner was easily the most lavish thing she was going to do for awhile.

"Everything is relative. Some of the people here may have spent more money on their clothes for the evening than a huntsman will make in a year. To them, that money is probably a drop in the bucket of their finances." Ren reasoned. Nora didn't look like she appreciated the explanation all that much, clearly hung up on the idea that defenders of man would make less than a dress worth of money. It wasn't that huntsmen were poorly compensated…

Rather, upper echelon fashion was ridiculously expensive.

There wasn't much to do except to wait for their food to come. Pyrrha's connection had secured them a table as promised. He was the primary expeditor for the entire establishment, and it was a position that granted him plenty of pull. She'd hoped the corner table he'd gotten them would give her a clear view of the entire main floor. Luckily, it did. Unluckily, she couldn't find her leader or the harlot anywhere.

 _Stop that!_ Pyrrha scolded herself. She didn't even know Cinder well enough to call her anything like that. Having never been jealous before, Pyrrha had no defenses in place to deal with such a controlling emotion. What she did have experience with was compartmentalizing emotions when a fan approached her.

A waiter coming to take their order wasn't all that different. Ren had asked her to order for both Nora and himself so they could avoid making a scene. It was another thing that Pyrrha thought Ren was making too big of a deal of, but he was adamant. The reason he gave was that he didn't want their lack of etiquette to hurt her social standing any more than their attendance already would. He'd even asked if there was some special way he needed to hold his silverware. It made Pyrrha sick to hear her friend so worried about going out for dinner simply because the restaurant was considered high class.

While Pyrrha ordered their food she made a request to let the man who'd invited her know that she had arrived. Although his job kept him almost exclusively in the kitchen, the wait staff delivered orders directly to him so that he could make sense of them. From what she understood the two largest duties he had was to make sure that all orders coming in had their specifications delivered to the chefs, and also that all food coming out was done properly. Pyrrha had written his daughter a letter as thanks for getting them a reservation without any notice whatsoever.

She hadn't expected him to leave his post and walk up to her table almost as soon as the waiter disappeared into the back. "Ms. Nikos! You finally decided to take me up on my offer!" The man beamed broadly at her. She reciprocated with a polite stage smile, though it was far more genuine than it would have been normally. Being pushy with offers to pay someone back was a frequent strategy to obligate them into spending more time with you. He'd left it as a standing offer should she ever wish to take him up on it. In Pyrrha's mind, it showed more care for actually paying her back than any ulterior motives.

"I'm grateful that you were able to accommodate us on such short notice." Pyrrha thanked him cordially. He didn't even bother to contain his scoff.

"More trouble than my life's worth to let my daughter find out I turned you down. The hassle of finding a table wasn't even a fraction of the headache Maggie would have given me if I turned down her idol. She still goes on and on about you. Wants to be a huntress herself nowadays. Keeps trying to convince me to let her board at Signal next year."

"I think Maggie would make a fine huntress." Pyrrha knew she would. The only reason she had contact with their family was because of how the man's daughter had managed to get her to take a picture with them. The girl had asked her with no hesitation if they could all take a photo together, to which Pyrrha had replied she couldn't. There were too many fans in the line to go through and take pictures with all of them.

It was obvious that Maggie didn't like the verdict she'd been handed. That emotional response was tempered by her respectful attitude. She congratulated Pyrrha on her fight and said that even though she couldn't afford to come to every event she'd make sure to watch them all online. Pyrrha had been tempted to cave and take the picture at that alone. A young girl that well behaved was an anomaly in her line of work. Pyrrha was used to being treated as more of an icon than a person at things like meet and greets.

What had pushed her over the edge was when the girl said she hoped to see someone beat Pyrrha. Her father had laughed awkwardly, telling her that wishing defeat on a fighter was rude. Pyrrha remembered what Maggie had replied ever since. "Her opponent was one of the best! I can't even imagine her losing! Seeing her fight someone good enough to make her lose would be the best fight ever!"

That was more than enough for Pyrrha to take a picture with the two of them. Unsurprisingly, it led to a slew of photo requests that she couldn't very well deny afterward. It had chewed into a large portion of her night that she'd resolved to spend relaxing after her big-ticket event, but it was worth it. Ever since she'd been pen pals with Maggie, along with the occasional message from her father. In an attachment to Maggie's own letter her father offered her a table at the Palais as thanks and provided his contact information should she ever want to take him up on it.

"Can't argue with that." The man grinned. "She's got so much fight in her that I'd feel sorry for the grimm if she became their enemy. It's… well … letting my daughter risk her life like that," He sighed. "I'm proud of her and all that fatherly crap. I can't stop worrying about sending her out to fight monsters."

Ren was the one to reply. "I think that's normal and healthy. It's natural to want the best for your child. Realizing that becoming a huntress is a dangerous life path means you are taking it seriously. Nobody can fault you for being worried — you're her father — you need to make sure that your fear doesn't cloud your judgement."

The man's expression was blank for a moment. It took a few seconds for his face to soften as he rubbed the back of his head bashfully. "Damn, they really grow you guys up fast at that school. I got mixed feelings being lectured on raising my daughter by a kid." He chuckled, a small lilt of shame in his voice. "I'm guessing this guy is your team leader? I thought it'd be Pyrrha for sure."

"Nah, that's just Renny!" Nora corrected him with a giggle. "He had his sense of fun surgically removed when we were kids so he could fill the space with more old man habits."

"Neither is Pyrrha for that matter. Our team leader is actually the reason we're here tonight." Ren said, ignoring Nora completely.

The man's face tightened in concern. "Pyrrha only asked for a table for three. If your leader is running late I can have someone bring over a chair while I try and juggle some things in the kitchen to make sure your meals come out at the same time." The man responded as his brain dove into a professional planning of the exact logistics necessary.

"It's only us three," Pyrrha rectified the misunderstanding. "Our leader is already here actually. At least we think he is — he should have arrived before us. None of us could manage to find him at any of the tables. Do you know if he left already?"

"I don't get out of the back too often, so I'm not sure," He started. "I can't say I've heard of any other students dropping in tonight from any of the staff. Pretty sure you would have seen him on the way here if he was dining with us tonight."

He was right about that. The table they'd gotten was closer to the back corner of the main dining hall. The walk there gave them a good view of all of the balcony seating along with enough time to do a full scan of all the first-floor attendees. None of them had been able to find their leader or his not-date.

"His name is Naruto Uzumaki. Maybe somebody mentioned him?" Ren suggested. Despite being sucked into Nora's shenanigans about preventing 'the Cinder route', Ren had very little opinion on the matter. His compliance was more a way of defending himself from any potential escalations in Nora's planning methods should this one go sour.

"Actually, yeah I do," The man admitted with an expression that was equal parts surprised and impressed. "One of our waiters was complaining about an absolute fox of a woman who wouldn't stop telling him to do his job."

"He didn't like being told to do his job?" Ren asked.

"She asked him to tell the host to make sure Uzumaki was escorted to the private room she'd reserved. Keeping track of where people are seated and being the cordial front face is literally his job. It'd be like someone asking the chef to make sure he was cooking; It's pointless and insulting. It's basically a slap in the face to a professional" The man grinned roguishly. "The waiter still said he'd take a pass at her if given the chance. He'd just make sure to muzzle her first."

Ren was shocked into silence as Nora cackled cheerfully. "You're weird! I thought everyone working here would have their own monocle or something."

"Pah! I save that posh nonsense for the people who require it. A big pain in the arse if you ask me. Good service, good atmosphere, and good food are what matter most. Shouldn't need to act so stiff someone would think you've got a stick shoved up and holding you straight."

Nora looked delighted while Ren looked relieved. They'd both had a superlative view of the people who worked at and attended a place like Le Palais de Vale. Finding someone so normal was honestly a relief.

One didn't need telepathic powers to glean that Pyrrha didn't share in their relief. The spartan's entire demeanor looked like a personal cloud had descended upon her. "A private room?"

"Errrr, yeah… Pretty hard specifications on it too. I think it was Phil who prepped the room for Ms. Fall. He said it was a real chore."

"Whaddaya mean specifications?" Nora asked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"I don't know all the details since it's not my job, but what stuck out was that she requested one of our smallest tables instead of the more sizeable one we'd had in there initially. Didn't make much sense to Phil when he saw who she was entertaining. He thought he was some young politician from Mistral or something. That guy is your leader? The host said he was at least twenty."

"He cleans up well," Ren replied before moving back to the heart of the matter. "Why did it surprise him?"

"Tables that small are meant to set a more intimate mood." The man shrugged. "Phil asked the host about Uzumaki after he'd led him to the room. The host said Uzumaki was dressed for business while everything Phil had set up in the room leaned towards pleasure." He explained. After sparing a quick glance towards the kitchen he bowed professionally before them. "I have to return to the kitchen. This is probably the first break I've taken here this month." He joked. When the normally polite Pyrrha failed to respond, he had no recourse but to shuffle awkwardly. "I'll tell Maggie you said hello."

With that as farewell, the man turned towards the kitchen and quickly marched himself towards it. For all his words to the contrary, his back was ramrod straight as he returned to his work. Pyrrha didn't notice, that much was obvious. Her eyes had glazed over as she was lost in her own thoughts.

 _A small table… an intimate setting… pleasure..._ fragmented thoughts floated in and out of her mind as she gazed off at nothing in a complete daze. Her jealousy had kicked into a debilitating overdrive.

It was exactly like Nora had said, wasn't it? Naruto had misunderstood an invitation to dinner as some sort of professional meeting when in reality... It was obvious her partner was just as oblivious to Cinder's reasons for inviting him to dinner as he was to Velvet's or her own. That didn't matter. What mattered was that Cinder had revealed her true motives and Pyrrha had to decide what to do about them. Thanks to Nora she now saw her newest rival with perfect clarity. Pyrrha braced herself mentally as she forced herself to accept it.

Cinder had fallen for Naruto, and that meant she was Pyrrha's rival.

* * *

Naruto Uzumaki was perplexing her to no end. It was like he took some sadistic pleasure in the cycle of keeping her on her toes, doing nothing until she relaxed and became flat-footed, and then knocking her back on the balls of her feet. Ever since the tidal wave of excitement perpetrated by Kurama the night had scaled down to exclusively ebb. For example:

"I'm interested in who taught you to fight as you did. It's much different than what you'd learn at any huntsman academy." She asked him. One of the many probes for information she had done throughout their conversation. Twenty minutes ago she would have been more coy and indirect. She would have felt the need to gently coax the answers out of him in a way that kept her intent to look for information she could use hidden.

At this point, she'd all but given up on anything but direct questions. Dressing things up wasn't necessary. "I trained under three separate teachers throughout my life. The first was a huntsman appointed to our team of three as our squad leader, the second was my godfather — the man who trained my own father, and finally was a man named Bee. Each of them helped me with areas of my training that they were specialized masters in."

"Three separate masters? They say too many cooks spoil the broth."

"Okay, maybe not my squad leader." He conceded with a chuckle. "He was more focused on the basics than anything specialized. That's actually why Kakashi requested that my godfather teach me; since he'd already trained my father he was used to working with my type of aura and the techniques that it could do."

She'd abandoned nuance because there was no need. She asked. He told. Uzumaki was a huntsman who had been sent primarily on solo missions due to his high functioning skills. His lack of need to operate with a partner, let alone a team, had left him on the road by himself for far too long. He'd come to Beacon as a means to try and reacclimate himself to people in a more casual setting.

He'd achieved most of this by the time he was seventeen, though he was a bit older now. He confessed to being closer to her own age than any other Beacon student. How he'd figured out her age was beyond her, but she reasoned that meant he was in his early twenties. Considering his skill a timeline of his life constructed around that theory instead of him being a meager seventeen made much more sense.

Throwing caution to the wind she decided to ask a question he couldn't answer. "Do you have any weaknesses that might be useful to know?"

Naruto scratched his head, sincerely contemplating the question. "I used to be weak with illusions, but I learned to fix that over time. I'm not the best with pushy women?" He offered uncertainly. "I don't think that's the kind of answer you want from me though. I don't really have any exploitable weaknesses I can think of."

 _Ridiculous._ Cinder remarked mutely. Everyone had weaknesses that could be exploited. He'd obviously chosen to offer some lesser weaknesses to conceal anything she could actually use. That's what she wanted to believe. Instincts honed over many years to detect the smallest hint of deceit remained completely dormant upon hearing his words. Either Uzumaki was the best liar she'd ever met or he was telling the truth. _What he believes to be the truth that is. No one is without weakness._

She needed to find it.

"How strong are you?" Cinder asked bluntly. It was one of the most important pieces of information she could hope to obtain. In itself, the question was rather genius when one considered how Naruto had acted thus far. She either won by finding the question he wouldn't answer or won by learning the answer itself. Either way, she won. The best plan were ones where you won even in defeat.

"Strong enough to answer all these questions," He answered. Refilling his glass of water with the pitcher she'd instructed be left behind.

"How vague and mysterious."

"It wasn't vague at all," Cinder felt the stagnant air shift around her as the ambiance of the room changed once more. This time she was prepared for it. She had refused to let complacency overtake her once more.

But there was nothing but silence following his words. In these situations the person who spoke first lost. So she let the seconds flow past with absolute patience. Soon the seconds became minutes, then the minutes started to accumulate without a word being spoken between the two. Enough time had passed that both of their meals had been prepared, served, and had started to disappear from their plates even with the slow and deliberate pace they consumed it. If she spoke first, she lost the battle. Even knowing that she decided to speak anyways.

She was always willing to lose a battle if it meant winning the war. "I'm not sure what you meant by your last comment."

"What I said," Naruto's reply was plain. She may have restated her question if he hadn't decided to elaborate. "Try assuming two things: That I view you as an enemy and that everything I've said is true."

Although Cinder didn't enjoy obeying other people's whims, she saw the value in it from time to time. If this was Naruto's way of giving her more information she'd be more than happy to take it from him. So far she'd learned much about him while she'd revealed nothing about herself. That went so far as that he knew she had plans for Beacon without knowing what they were. The ability to sense negative emotions had fascinating implications.

She refocused on the question given to her. The most obvious reason to answer her questions was to fill her with disinformation. Her inability to confirm he was lying didn't mean he wasn't. She had believed her ability to catch a falsehood was insurmountable by even the most accomplished of liars. However, with Naruto Uzumaki she was no longer willing to assume anything. To move on with her speculation she had to choose whether or not she believed he had successfully deceived her.

She didn't. He seemed tricky — devious even — but she didn't think he was lying. Winning while telling the truth seemed to be a sort of game to him. If he was just some huntsman then why wasn't she dead? While it was true that Uzumaki didn't know exactly what her endgame was, he did seem to know it came at the expense of Beacon. If she did as he requested and assumed that he did have the ability to sense negative emotions that meant he knew her malicious intend as a fact, not a suspicion. As a huntsman, he was obligated to stop her by any means necessary.

The fact that she was still alive after he'd had the opportunity to dispose of her meant something. That much would have been obvious to any plebeian. The question was what he wanted from her specifically? "Do you have a vendetta against Beacon or those who rule it?" Cinder asked him. Enjoying a relaxing semester or two in Beacon before leveling it to the ground might have been his idea of a relaxing break for all she knew.

"No," Naruto answered swiftly. "Not the first one at least. Ozpin is kind of a pain in the ass, just not to the point I'd do anything about it."

"I'd heard Glynda Goodwitch had given you quite the hard time at the beginning of your term at Beacon."

Naruto chuckled. "That's the truth if I've ever heard it. I know she did it on Ozpin's orders, and I'm not one to blame one for trusting their superiors. At least to a point." He added the clarifier as an afterthought. "You can believe me when I say that anyone who attempts to harm the students, staff, or other innocent people around me will be dealt with."

Again Cinder found herself believing his words. If she accepted them as truth then what did they mean? He had deduced that she was against Beacon in some way. He suspected correctly that she was trying to find the Fall Maiden that had been spirited away before she could finish the job and claim all her power. It may not have been enough to damn her in a court of law, but it was certainly enough to give her to Ozpin. It was enough for any huntsman to justify killing her when he had the chance.

The question remained why she was alive? If the game to him was to laugh at her expense while refusing to lie that meant the truth was hidden in his words. Uzumaki had said 'strong enough to answer all these questions'. What did that mean? He wasn't strong for telling her about his past — he was a fool. By giving her the names of two of his teachers it would make it that much easier to find where he'd lived and gather something she could use to exploit him.

Equally foolish was telling her that he'd been weak to illusions. While he may have been better at defending against them now, people didn't turn their weaknesses into strengths. He'd probably learned to defend himself against them up to a point where he considered it a solved problem compared to what it had been before. It was possible that he'd been lying — feeding her lines about illusions being his weakness when they were actually his strength. If that was the case, then why couldn't she see anything but truth in his eyes?!

"I'll give you a hint," Naruto acquiesced with overplayed dramatics in the form of an elongated exhale and a shaking of his head. "What have I gained from this conversation?"

Nothing. He'd gained absolutely nothing because she'd made sure of it. In the beginning, she'd steered the conversation away from herself as unnoticeably as possible. She'd been careful not to give anything up that could possibly be used against her. At some point, it had just become a matter of asking Naruto questions and receiving his answers. He'd given her everything, she'd given him nothing.

When Naruto spoke it was like he was reading her mind. "When is it right to give things to someone who has goals opposite your own?"

 _Seldom._ Was Cinder's immediate response. Gifts could smooth over a relationship in which two people didn't see eye to eye. Gifts with promises of more to come could align people with different goals as long as both believed they would get what they wanted in the end. Such was the nature of her relationship with Adam and the Fang. Their views were diametrically opposed to one another; she wanted Beacon to fall where he wanted it to stand. Even if he were to wrongly believe there was some sort of prize he could offer to change her from her path he must have known that small pieces of information would not have been remotely sufficient.

There was no reason for him to give her that information. She gained. He didn't. If it wasn't out of some attempt to endear her towards him then that left only one possible answer. "You don't think it matters if I know?"

"Ding ding ding!" Naruto chimed a vocal victory bell for her. "If the information won't make a difference what does it matter if you know it?"

Cinder frowned. A rare bout of her emotions taking visible control of any part of her actions that night. "You've told me plenty that I can use."

"I'm sure you will," Naruto speared a piece of his fish and brought it to his mouth. "But no matter what tools you are given you can't sharpen a feather to cut down a mountain. There is nothing you can do, no one you can bring, no amount of reinforcements that would make a difference. Anytime I decide I want to capture you I can. I didn't let Kurama kill you because there is nothing you are capable of doing that I can't handle."

His words were beyond arrogant. They weren't spoken as brags or boasts but as facts. Cinder knew that he believed his words. In the face of his overwhelming confidence, she had to remind herself that didn't mean they were true. All it meant was that he thought they were true.

"Believe what you will. It matters not to me." It didn't matter what Uzumaki believed about his capabilities. A normal huntsman could not hope to compete with the powers of a maiden. That was why she had sought that power in the first place. Even half of the power would be enough for her to deal with Ozpin. If Uzumaki opposes her then he would fall in time.

"Now don't be like that." Naruto breathed warmly into her ear. She'd seen his teleportation once before and recognized it instinctually this time. Cinder felt she had dealt with enough of his gall to last her a lifetime. It was time to put him in his place.

Cinder reached for her maiden powers. She wouldn't kill him, no no, but she'd make sure he knew his place.

…

Where were they?

Cinder panicked. There was no other way to classify the rush of fear that stampeded through her mind as she searched her body for the maiden's power. Her power.

"You really should have been able to see this coming." Naruto admonished her. He hooked his chair with his leg and pulled it beside her, sitting down so that his hand remained on her shoulder. His purple ringed eyes stared into her own. "I already showed you this technique during our spar. I didn't destroy or deflect your fire," Cinder noticed his hand shimmering on her shoulder. "I absorbed it."

Cinder pushes his hand off of her and jumped back, skidding on the floor as the low friction of her heels couldn't stop her momentum. She reached for her power once more, hoping to find it now that Uzumaki was no longer interfering. Her hope was in vain. No matter where she searched the power that had been inside her before couldn't be found. That was impossible!

"Not there is it?" Naruto goaded her. "Normally I wouldn't be able to do that. Your body would just replenish any energy I took from you over time. What I took wasn't yours though, was it?"

"You bastard! That is my power!"

Naruto laughed in her face. "I can tell you that it isn't. The nature of that energy feels nothing like yours. Your aura is a miasma of darkness and hate. Your very nature screams revenge. This energy," Naruto's hand lit up with a ruddy orange glow. "Is fiercely independent. It values freedom in thought and deed above all else. Whoever this belongs to was a free spirit that could not have been shackled down in any one place." He swirled the orange light into a ball in his hand. "You can learn quite a bit about their personalities just by looking at the nature of their body's energy. The person behind this energy is worlds different than the person behind yours."

Cinder lunged out to grab the light in Naruto's hand. With a lazy roll of his eyes, it flickered out of existence before she could even reach it. "Calm down. Kami, you really lose your cool when someone pushes you over the edge. What the hell happened to the calm and collected Cinder from a minute ago?"

Asking someone to calm down was almost a surefire way to make sure they didn't calm down. The only reason that statement needed to be prefaced with almost was because of people like her. _One deep breath in. Hold. Breathe out._ Cinder walked herself through the process of breathing in an effort to find herself. She was dispassionately rational. She was calculated. She was calm.

The grimm in her hand that had helped her steal the Fall Maiden's powers originally would attempt to assault Uzumaki and reclaim her power at her command. As tempting as it was to reclaim what had been stolen from her then and there, Cinder knew it was a mistake. Uzumaki was likely the superior fighter if she didn't have access to her power. Blowing any potential reconciliation between the two of them out of the water with a brashly improvised attack risked more than she believed it stood to gain. That meant it was time for games of the mind once more.

"I'm impressed Uzumaki. However, once again I find myself mysteriously not dead. If this isn't some trick I assume that means you have some sort of deal you want to offer?" Cinder's voice returned to normal as she found her stride once more.

Cinder accepted the possibility that Uzumaki was more powerful than she'd originally anticipated. Now that she had calmed herself she once more searched for the maiden's power within her body and came up with nothing. Even if he had somehow stolen her powers that didn't mean he would be able to use them. They were powers that could only be inherited by a woman. Never before had a man held a maiden's power. Most likely that meant that he had only been able to drain the power from her because it was not yet wholly her own. If the original maiden died it was possible that it would return to her.

Besides that, there was always a possibility that he intended to use it as a bargaining chip. "You are seriously not cute, you know that?" Naruto disparaged her as he picked up his chair and returned it to its original position. An annoyed gesture at her chair was all the indication Cinder needed to know she'd been right. She returned to the table and retook her seat as she watched him intently. "Kind of rubs me wrong to do this after you said I would…" He grumbled in annoyance. "You're right, I do have an offer for you."

 _I know that. Now give me your proposal._ Cinder fumed emotionally beneath her controlled surface. Managing to calm herself didn't mean that she'd smothered all of her frustrations, confusions, and myriad of other emotions she felt towards the situation. All that she did was reign them in once more to be under her control. It was frustrating to watch him slowplay a hand when they both knew he held all the trumps.

"When is the latest you would need these powers back by to accomplish whatever you have planned?" Naruto asked.

Cinder considered lying and saying that she needed them immediately. A quick risk-reward evaluation on her part led her to the conclusion that if he believed her to be lying when they were supposed to be dealing in good faith it was all the more likely he would never voluntarily give her back the maiden's power. She wasn't convinced that Naruto had stolen the power, or even that she couldn't get it back independently of him. That didn't mean she had the luxury of slamming the door in his face if it turned out both of the previous options ended up working against her.

For now, honesty was the best policy. "A day or so before the final rounds of the Vytal Festival Tournament." At least that had been her old iteration of the plan. On the likely event that he made it to the final round, she wasn't sure if Emerald's illusions would allow her to create the scene necessary. Thanks to his admission about strengthening his defense to illusions she now knew that testing would be required in the coming weeks to see what adjustments she'd need to make to her plans.

"That's a month and some spare change, right?" Naruto mumbled to himself as he looked down at the table. "That should work." Cinder relaxed internally as her face maintained the same expression. "Fine, I'll either give you back what I took or replace it with something comparable by then."

"There is nothing comparable to the powers of a maiden. I will accept them back and nothing else if we are to have a deal." Cinder declared adamantly.

"Don't worry about it. When the time comes I'll let you choose... if you still want it that is."

That statement was the most nonsensical one he'd made so far. He was holding it over her head as leverage for whatever deal he was about to propose. "If?" Cinder questioned him plainly.

"Nothing that would stop you from accepting," Naruto assured her. "From now until then you'll spend time with our little group whenever you're available."

Cinder would have been less surprised if Uzumaki had attempted to take her life than she was at what he'd gone and suggested. Of all the millions of questions she had, there was one that sprung to the top of the list. "Why?"

"I don't think you're evil. I think you're angry." Naruto stated like it magically explained everything. It didn't. "Not a fan of that look you're giving me, so I guess that means I should explain more. Whatever you plan to do I can tell you're doing it as some type of revenge. I've met plenty of screwed up people doing plenty of bad things with energies that weren't half as malignant as yours."

Naruto took a drink and a breath before continuing. "The difference between those people and you is that they actually believed they were doing the right thing. You know you're doing something bad, you just don't care. You're far too angry for some misguided war for peace to be the reason you're doing this. I'm willing to bet whatever you intend to do at Beacon is pretty damn personal."

"And your plan is to what? Rehabilitate me?" Cinder gave a sneering bark of laughter.

Naruto stared at her dead on. "Basically."

Now that statement was the most nonsensical one he'd made all evening. "You want me to play house with a bunch of sniveling students?"

"They snivel less nowadays," Naruto chuckled at his own joke. "That is about the size of it though. You and your team spend time with the rest of us until the festival and I'll give you the power you want."

Cinder couldn't believe what she was hearing. It was just too easy. "There are a few rules, of course."

"Of course." Cinder massaged her temples. This night had been a certifiable disaster. "I can't imagine any terms you'd come up with for such a mundane task that I wouldn't agree to. Tell me what I'll have to do."

"I knew you'd see it my way," He grinned at her. "First and foremost you're not allowed to take any of them hostage to try and get to me. I'd stop you, you'd fail, and it would just be a general waste of time and opportunity."

A needless rule. Assuming she did take someone hostage their deal would break down on the spot. A rule telling her not to break their deal was entirely pointless. "That's agreeable. What else?"

"I'm sure you'll need to diabolically scheme at some point. If there is going to be something you need to attend to yourself you'll have to give me two days notice if it would interfere with you attending any group functions. Don't need to know where or what, just when. I'll be tolerant up to a point. Don't try and find the line."

Cinder despised the idea of asking permission to attend to her business. _Needs must, I suppose._ "Fine. Is there anything else?"

"Only one last thing," Naruto assured her. "You can't lie to any of us."

Cinder scoffed. "What exactly do you wish me to tell them? My intents for Beacon?"

"I'm hoping you're good enough at manipulating the conversation that it doesn't come up," Naruto replied as he drained another glass of water. Cinder had long since lost her taste for her wine. "Tell them you don't want to answer a question if it is something you must avoid. You don't need to be completely transparent, only honest."

"Is that some sort of attempt to make my bonds with them more genuine?"

Naruto's face fell flat. "You are really way too smart for your own good. Anyone ever tell you that? I actually thought that was pretty clever on my part."

 _Clever for an elementary school counselor, maybe._ Cinder swallowed the venom she so longed to spit. She wasn't one to argue against her own interests. If Uzumaki kept his word it meant that she'd gained something for nothing. Her beliefs would not be shaken by anything; certainly not some idiotic students.

Even if Uzumaki broke his word — an eventuality that was all but assured — it was an open invitation to study and interact with some of the most problematic huntresses and huntsmen to her plans. She'd already considered inserting herself into their circle in order to gather information about the individuals that had gathered around Uzumaki like moths to a flame. It was a plan where she won no matter what happened. Considering how thoroughly the rug had been pulled out from her this evening she should have been happy to take her windfall and run with it.

She wasn't. There was a difference between winning by her own two hands and being granted a victory by her opponent's idiocy. As bitter a pill as it was to swallow, Cinder knew she had no choice. "I accept."

* * *

 _Hey! That worked out pretty well!_ Naruto gave himself a mental pat on the back as he finished off the asparagus on his plate. He was a bit sad that it had gone cold, but its sacrifice was not in vain. Everything was proceeding according to plan.

Well… maybe not his plan. Honestly, he'd winged most of that as he went. You can dress up a fox in all the costumes you want and it'd still be a fox. Similarly, no matter how old he got Naruto hadn't enjoyed spending hours constructing plans in the dead of night.

His slipshod approach lent itself well to dealing with people like Cinder. She knew nothing about him. Anything he did was pretty damn likely to get into her head as she tried to rationalize what exactly he was doing. It usually ended up with people giving him far more credit than he deserved as long as he shocked them enough to keep them on their toes. It wasn't like he had no idea what he was doing. He had planned ahead a little bit. Getting her to agree to that deal was as far as he'd gotten in the planning phase. Naruto had gone into the night hoping he could figure that out as he went.

Ransoming whatever weird energy she had taken wasn't how he'd intended to do it, but hey! Needs must and all that.

"If we're finished here I will be on my way." Cinder informed him as she abruptly stood up. Sounded less like she was interested in knowing whether or not they were finished and more like she was ready to get the hell outta there. What'd he know, though?

"I'll escort you out, then." Naruto offered as he got out of his own seat, grabbing his Kage hat and fixing it on his head. Aluguard had sure had some balls making this for him all those years ago.

Looking at Cinder's face and the clear 'I'd rather you not' stamped on it in bold font was enough to make most neon signs look indistinct in comparison. "Don't give me that look. We're supposed to be friends for the next month and some."

"I need to spend time with your group, not harm them, alert you to any plans that require me to become unavailable to you, and not lie. Nowhere was it stipulated that I needed to be friendly." She replied icily.

Naruto groaned as he buried his face in his hand in a show of exasperation. His primary goal was to hide the havoc her response was playing across his face. _Shit! Why didn't I think of that?!_

He needed something cool, something intelligent. "I didn't say it because I know you'll do it anyways. What point would there be in spending so much time and getting nothing out of it?" Really, why not go with the flow? Sasuke was an angst-ridden flea as a kid and he got over it eventually. Sort of. Maybe? Hopefully, his words were enough to make her realize she might as well give things an earnest shot if she was being forced to do them anyways.

"You don't need to tell me that. I have plenty to gain by befriending them and near nothing to lose." Boom! Perfect! She understood that she might as well make the best out of a bad situation. That was exactly what he'd been hoping for.

His laid-back attitude towards her admittance that she had less than desirable plans in store for Beacon would probably be considered treasonous by a majority of people. The reality of it was that he'd meant what he said to her; what did it matter? He'd already tagged her with a Hiraishin mark and hidden it down her back. Anywhere she went, he could be in an instant.

What could she throw at him that he couldn't handle? If anyone was powerful enough to oppose him they probably would have already taken over the world. Naruto knew the only thing stopping him from becoming the God Emperor of Remnant was his complete lack of desire. He wasn't someone who could be worn down by throwing unskilled idiots at him. Any claim that she could do damage to Beacon had been instantly overruled by his arrival.

So if there was no harm that could be done, why not give her a chance to change? Sasuke was his best friend, his teammate, and his lifetime rival. He'd done more good for their world than most could accomplish given a millennium. Naruto and everyone else had to give him plenty of chances to make it to that point. Enough chances to almost kill Naruto repeatedly, almost kill the five Kage, almost kill the Raikage a separate time from that, almost killing Bee… Kami, Sasuke was a dick when they were kids. The point was that everyone deserves a chance to turn their life around. If he knew he could stop Cinder from doing any damage if worse came to worst, what was the harm?

"Fine. If you're going to escort me at least do it properly." Cinder requested with exasperation thick enough to make a stew. Naruto had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. He'd just volunteered to walk with her out of the building, right?

It turned out that was wrong. Cinder grabbed his arm and forced it so his forearm was making a straight line atop the bottom section of his ribcage. The positioning of it made a hole with his arm against the right side of his body that she slipped her arm through and held herself close. Naruto euthanized any attempts his blood was making to rush to his face as he was hellbent on hiding his embarrassment. He was pretty sure he'd sold the hell out of the smart guy persona and he didn't want to burn all that effort to the ground by blushing because she was pressed a little too close for comfort.

"Escort me?" She prompted him. Naruto assumed this was some sort of hellish walking position in which the man tried not to be distracted by the fact that there was a soft and warm woman with soft and warm womanly parts smashed up against him. Fortunately, he was mostly correct in that assumption. When he took his first step forward Cinder was more than prepared to walk with him.

 _So far so good._ Naruto tried to convince himself. She'd lost her cool pretty bad earlier in the night when he'd nabbed that weird energy from her. Maybe that meant it would be harder for her to judge him? A man could hope.

As soon as he opened and they exited the door together (it surprised him that it was made two people wide. Was it made with this kind of thing in mind?) he saw the waiter who had taken his order bowing before them. It had to be exhausting doing that much bowing in a day.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Madam? Monsieur?" The waiter asked. Naruto hazarded a guess that he was whatever that last word was.

"No, we're leaving. You can let the manager know that the accommodations were satisfactory." And that was all Cinder had to say. A tug on Naruto's arm was her way of indicating she wished for him to walk. Stupid Remnant and their stupid language. The word 'escort' had nothing to do with this in their dictionary. He checked with Kurama!

The two of them made their way down the stairs and towards the large archway with doors that served as the entrance and exit of the building. Naruto was overloaded by the stimulus of the ridiculously upscale restaurant combined with the small detail of having a woman on his arm. Unfortunately for him, that meant he missed the glint of steel and ire in Cinder's eyes as she noticed something that he didn't.

Naruto didn't know this, but Cinder had no problem walking in her heels. Because of that, he didn't know how abnormal it was for her to trip on what could only be described as nothing. All he saw was a girl falling and he reacted as any normal person would; by catching her. That was all well and good by itself. The specifics of it made things a bit more complicated.

It was her right foot that snagged, somehow causing her body to twist right and therefore into his own. Since she was using her left arm to hold onto his right for support the only thing he could do was to try and brace her back with his left. Though that obviously meant wrapping his arm around her back it just wasn't something you thought about in the moment. When you summed it all together it resulted in her spinning a half turn towards him as he held her in an embrace. Awkward, yes. That big of a deal, hopefully not.

When her right arm wrapped around his neck and pulled him into a kiss that whole take on things went out the window.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd kissed someone. Technically, this was more _being_ kissed by someone. That didn't mean the physical sensations weren't the same. The first thing he noticed was the sensation of her soft and supple lips on his own. They were moist and clung to his own lips all the more because of it. Cinder's light grip with her own lips only added to the feeling of snugness between the two of them.

The second was her breath. Its steamy warmth bombarded his senses and drove out all other thoughts. It carried the scent of fragrant red wine and honey as some of it found his way to his nose while the rest of it entered his own mouth.

Only after his brain regained a twentieth of its normal function was he able to realize how close they were pressed together. Her own form had practically melded into his own as she pulled herself close while pulling him towards her. The body heat she radiated was a superfluous reminder about the lack of distance between the two of them. For all his luck in finding ways to stay dominant the entire evening it was clear he wasn't going out as such.

When she separated from him Naruto didn't have a response. His brain had overheated and fried. Any hope of it cooling down was going to be a very lengthy process. "Consider that a bit of revenge," Cinder said coyly as she completely disentangled herself from him. "You stole something from me and caused me no small amount of hassle. It was only fair that I did the same to you."

And with that, she turned and sashayed her hips seductively as she walked out the door. Naruto didn't have the mental faculties remaining to make sense of what she'd just said. When a single finger of Cinder's pointed to the right from over her shoulder Naruto wished he could have retained that ignorance just a little bit longer.

There sat his team, looking like they'd just witnessed a bomb being detonated in the middle of the building. Naruto couldn't say he looked any better, but realizing his team was there was enough to regain enough his brain to speak.

"Oh, you are such a bit-"

Any words he spoke after that were lost on Cinder who had cleared the doors and entered the streets below. That night taught Naruto a lesson he would soon commit to memory about the femme fatale. Anyone who took something from her would always find she'd take something back. That's the kind of woman Cinder is.

* * *

 _ **Holy lord that chapter was a pain in the ass to write. Been writing and proofing for the past five hours and I swear Fuyu is going to destroy this chapter with corrections. I'm going to try and head off some of the flame I see myself getting here by talking about why this plotpoint makes sense. IDK why I bother, since I'm not convinced people read my AN's, but a man must endeavor to try.**_

 _ **Naruto isn't wrong to think that Cinder is a non-factor to him. The dude could blow up Vale five times over and probably still have chakra to spare with the help of his three biju. It makes sense why he thinks there is nothing Cinder can do that he can't stop. Is he right about that? Is he wrong? Time will tell. What matters now is Naruto's perspective isn't outlandish in thinking that Cinder won't be able to do anything so bad he can't fix or stop it.**_

 _ **Naruto rehabilitating Cinder is a no-brainer in my opinion. Nagato goes and kills Jiraiya — beloved godfather and teacher to Naruto — and yet the spiky blond finds it in his heart to forgive him. OFNT Naruto is a bit more damaged, but he's still the same person. Since in his mind Cinder can't do anything he couldn't stop it makes sense that he'd rather give her a chance to change than just kill her or throw her in jail. If the bullshit Sasuke managed to get away with doesn't convince you of that IDK what to tell you.**_

 _ **Finally, why the kiss? I can hear you all going "Cinder ship?" like the goddamn birds from Finding Neemo already. I thought I made this pretty clear in the chapter, but LET ME BE CLEAR HERE AS WELL. The kiss meant nothing to Cinder. She was screwing with him the same way Neo did when she grabbed his ass. Kisses don't sail ships people. I'm not saying there isn't a possibility Cinder wins out... you never know. I might just pair him with Sarada and call it a day. I'm crazy like that.**_

 _ **Hopefully, this reduces the amount of rage I wake up to. If any of you fools play Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide you should hit me up! Been having a ball playing it with my good friend, but we need two people to round out our party. AI is true suffering.**_


	28. Thoughts

_**Greetings and salutations! Welcome to a new chapter of OFNT! I have nothing more to say.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 2x**

 **Thoughts**

There were some things Cinder had expected when she'd allowed herself to be so thoroughly bested at dinner last night. At the height of her panic, the only outcome that seemed likely was the release of death. She'd never been happier to be mistaken at the time, but now she was beginning to reconsider.

"Why the hell are you here?!" The annoying, orange-haired teammate of Naruto's cried out in outrage. It was a sound that perfectly balanced the factors of grating and annoying.

"I was invited." Cinder responded simply. She was being forced to interact with this ingrate, forced to be nice even, but that didn't mean she had to turn the other cheek when met with open hostility.

The girl turned and glared daggers at Uzumaki who was making his way towards the track at a much more gradual pace than the one she'd chosen to adopt. With Uzumaki was the remainder of his team as well as a team of boys Cinder had noted the existence of in class. To the surprise of nobody, the team of boys was much more excited to see her than Naruto's two other teammates.

"Naruto?" Pyrrha's voice had an accusatorily questioning edge.

"Quit griping," Naruto shot her down remorselessly. "I already said my piece on this. She's part of the gang now. Deal with it."

The two women on his team clearly had an issue with that directive, but they didn't pursue it. In that sense, it was almost impressive how much of a leash her adversary had his team on. It wasn't all that different from the lip she was given by Mercury and Emerald. It meant nothing as they would obey, yet the mere show of reluctance provides them some small comfort that their voices were being heard.

Speak of the devil. "I still don't understand why we have to be here," Mercury complained.

"Cinder told us to be here, so we're here. Shut up and deal with it. I thought you'd be all over the chance to flirt with two girls." Emerald said.

"Both of whom are spoken for," Mercury sighed. "It isn't the same thing, Em. Maybe if that RWBY was here I'd be into it."

Cinder ignored their babbling back and forth then just like she did every time the two started having rows with each other. There was something that was bothering her. It was hard to explain, something ethereal yet noticeable all at once. The more she focused on it the harder it was to ignore. She knew she should restrain herself, but she couldn't hold it in.

"What is with the pacing of this conversation?" Cinder asked Uzumaki as he closed in on her near the track, the group of male lugabouts finally reaching the rest of them. Naruto arched his brow as the eleven of them all came in close proximity.

"What do you mean, pacing?" He asked her.

"Surely you've noticed," Cinder refuses to believe otherwise, it was just that obvious. "This whole conversation feels so lazy and forced. How did we get here? Why did we get here?"

The pace of Nora's nodding was very enthusiastic. "She's right! Is everyone really supposed to accept you just talked to us earlier and convinced us that this bitch would be joining us without explanation? That's so frickin lame!"

"Hmmmm…" Ren hummed quietly. After some deliberation he walked over to the center of the track, leaving the rest of them so he could lay down.

"Ok, now what's up with that?!" Nora pointed at Ren. He'd adopted a relaxed sunbathing posture that completely contrasted the training atmosphere that should have been set.

"I'm taking a break," Ren replies without opening his eyes. Instead, all effort that could have been directed towards paying attention was spent stretching his arms and legs as he sprawled himself out on the grass. "It's a gag chapter."

"A what?" The mohawked boy questioned him.

Naruto smacked his fist into his open hand. He was the third one to arrive at the conclusion Cinder had begun to suspect. "Think about it. Everything felt so forced and awkward just a few minutes ago. The whole flow of the conversation was completely unnatural. That means that either we've lost the ability to form a cohesive plot, or…"

"Oh shit," Cardin joined the party. "This isn't canon."

"Exactly!" Naruto pointed rapped his nose and pointed at Cardin.

"Oh thank fuck," Russel took a seat on the bleachers. "That means we can switch from Cinder's POV to omniscient POV. It's a real bitch to be defined by my mohawk until she learns my fucking name."

"Agreed," the quiet- Dove said as he sat next to him. "It is a convenient way to pad the word count, though."

"Well… shit. Might as well enjoy the break." Naruto laughed as he brushed past Cinder so he could join Ren on the field. He took a seat next to his teammate, stretching his neck from side to side.

Pyrrha shrunk the distance between them in an instant. Instead of sitting next to her leader as one might have expected, she turned her back to her leader. In one swift attack, she grabbed both of his arms, nestled herself in between his legs, and then draped his arms over her body. When she relaxed her body into his own her face was so blissfully content that Naruto couldn't find a reason to argue. He did manage to shoot Ren a questioning expression to which he received a look of exasperation.

"She has a crush on you. How have you not figured this out yet?" Ren deadpanned. Naruto look like he'd been hit by a bus.

"She what?!"

"Please tell me he is joking." Cinder pleaded as she joined the NNVR team, her own lackeys in tow. There was no point in spending energy being hostile if none of this mattered anyway.

"No, he's really that dumb." Cardin joined his teammates on the bleachers, followed by Sky.

"What do you mean I'm dumb?! How the hell could I have figured out that- wait… you like me?" He asked Pyrrha.

"A lot. I went kind of crazy a few times, there." His partner admitted with a blush.

"Huh," Naruto responded. He wasn't exactly sure what his response in that situation would have been normally. The fact that none of this mattered only made finding the appropriate way to respond even more confusing. "And the point of this is?" He moved his arms which were restrained by Pyrrha's own so that he had no chance of retreating.

"If none of this is canon, I can do what I want without it blowing back on me." She nuzzled her cheek into his arm, brushing the arm of his shirt a little higher so she could feel his warmth on her face. Naruto didn't have the heart to tell her no. It wasn't the most unwelcome thing. If he ever got to the emotional stability required for romance, Pyrrha would be a pretty good choice.

"Alright, if none of this matters I'm gonna ask a question," Sky had to raise his voice to cover the distance between the two groups. "What the hell does the author have against RWBY? I'm pretty sure we've gotten more screen time than them, and everybody hates us."

"You'd be surprised. Quite a few readers enjoy the chapters we take center stage. It seems most stories write us out after the Forever Fall arc. Seeing something fresh and new has a certain appeal." Dove smiled.

"I mean we're fucking awesome," Russel agreed. "Just seems weird that we've been focused on more than the characters the show is about."

"You got that right!" Ruby fumed. Her entire team was sitting in the bleachers behind CRDL through some act of god. The writer didn't want to spend too much time thinking about the verbs and adjectives necessary to describe their approach while differentiating it from Naruto and company.

He also didn't want to waste time describing the varying levels of shock from everyone. Conveniently for him, the entire cast seemed content to just roll with it. "We had two chapters that focused on RWBY back to back. What the hell do you want?!" Naruto complained.

"Oh don't count 'Chaperone'," Weiss scoffed. "That chapter was dreadful. The author even admitted it."

"It wasn't the best, there's no denying that. I myself enjoyed it anyway." Ren said.

"I liked it too…" Ruby mumbled, a small dab of drool pooling in the corner of her mouth.

"Ok, that's my issue right there!" Yang pointed one finger and her sister and another at Naruto. "She is fifteen. He is sixty-seven. Why the hell are all the people reading this story voting for a Ruby x Naruto pairing?!"

"Sixty-seven?" Pyrrha asked with concern. It didn't take long for the plot omniscience to reach her as well, confirming that to be true. She tilted her head backward, bearing her neck before him as she looked up into his eyes. It didn't take two seconds before she pulled herself even tighter to him. Pyrrha Nikos was not one to be shaken off that easily.

"The rest of us are at least in the age of consent range in most countries!" Yang barrelled on, oblivious to the cringing faces of many readers who were beginning to feel like pedophiles. "She's fifteen for fuck's sake!"

"It isn't that strange. Huntresses fight and die for the people of Remnant. Why should we allow Ruby to risk her life against the grimm while we deny her something as normal as sex?" Blake asked. It was a fairly good point.

"Nononono! We have enough discussions on philosophy in a normal chapter. I'm not letting you do that now! Just let me be mad!" Yang seethed. _Why are people picking Ruby over me? I thought I had a really good scene with Naruto in the Forever Fall arc…_

"I can't say I get it either. Naruto is an emotionally damaged hardass, Ruby shits rainbows." Russel remarked vulgarly.

"You know what you're talking about!" Nora beamed at Russel. "Pyrrha and Naruto are both competitive, she's the strongest one out of all of us-" Cinder coughed. "And she's a perfect way to keep the Minato x Kushina pair going for Naruto. She's the clear choice!"

"But I'm so adorable." Velvet sulked.

"At least my girl would actually drive the plot forward," Coco tilted her shades down so she could look Nora in the eyes. "Velv has already shown that she can help smooth out her man's rougher edges. Yandere girl is more likely to let him do what he wants without fixing anything."

"Geh." Nora recoiled.

"Does it matter?" Cinder asked knowingly. "The viewing audience as a whole is unlikely to care about character development. Why else would they overwhelmingly vote for Ruby to be the ship for this fic? The two of them might be adorable in some other universe, but here? Their relationship would have virtually no redeeming qualities, and the few they did have would be easily replicated in any other pairing."

"Character development is too confusing," Mercury said.

"The author should have just made it a harem. Would have been easier." Emerald criticized the poor author who was just trying to make a compelling narrative on the effects of depression and emotional trauma.

"We'd have twice the followers and twice the number of patrons if we did." Cardin seconded her opinion.

"And can you imagine how much bank we'd be making if this was smut? Seriously, fuck this author." Russel swore. "People pay to get their knob wobbled. Out of the couple thousand regular readers of this story we only have seventeen willing to contribute. What the hell is up with that?"

"It isn't all bad," Naruto defended the poor writer and his audience. "We're climbing up the ranks of the most viewed fics slowly and steadily. We're doing it with chapters half written about the socioeconomic impact of cars. If we're getting up there describing how labor laws are seldom implemented in time to account for industrial revolutions while competing against harems and sex then we're doing something right."

"I'm pretty sure half the audience just skipped that part." Ren pointed out.

"Sucks to be them, then. Skipping those parts is gonna bite them in the ass when they find out I hid several plot-central details in them. When we jump back to the Elemental Nations and they have no idea what the hell is going on I'm going to laugh my ass off."

"Speaking of harems and ships, who do I end up with in the end?" Naruto asked. Pyrrha glared at me rather menacingly.

When did I get here? Nobody knows. Thank the magic of a gag chapter.

"Why spoil the surprise?" I asked Naruto teasingly.

"We're twenty-seven chapters in already! Get on with it!" Nora shouted, ever the voice of the people. "Just announce that Pyrrha won already!"

"Please?"

"No!" Two female voices hit me at once.

"Alright, you win." I acquiesced. I really did feel bad about stringing my audience along for so many chapters. It was probably time to let them know who the ship was anyways. "The fact of the matter is… this is a slash fic."

The silence was deafening.

"I write in some Deus Ex at the end so that Sasuke gets the Asura chakra necessary to complete the set so that he too becomes immortal. Sasuke was living a lie his entire married life. His first kiss with Naruto in the academy was the spark to a yaoi romance to last the-"

I, the author, was unceremoniously ejected from my own fic via a punch to the face by Naruto that by all counts should have ended my life. Maybe he was embarrassed, maybe he hated the ending that much. With no one to write what came next, the chapter came to an immediate and abrupt end.

* * *

 ** _Normal production will be resumed next Sunday. Happy April Fools! Please support me at_** ** _p a treon . com (slash) Faulkner in order to continue production of this fic and F &C. Support is appreciated and welcome, but I want to be clear right here; I have hobbies that are equitable besides this. I don't mind if people don't want to support a fanfic, don't like my fanfic enough to support it, or don't have the money or means to do so. I get it, no problem. I just don't want to take an update one day and go "Ok guys, fics over. Peace." because the enjoyment and equity of another hobby overrides my desire to write. If people want to see this story continue, swell, feel free to support it through reviews, PMs or monetarily. I just want to make it clear that if I stop writing it will not be because I don't enjoy it — I've always loved writing — but rather that my cost-benefit analysis of spending my time doing it dropped too far into the red. Money helps balance the CBA more towards writing, and I wanted to give people who much desire the fic continue the opportunity to influence that. So holy shit, calm down with the death threats. Slow your roll people._**


	29. An Unanswerable Question

**_Greetings and salutations! Sorry for being a bit late on this. I was dragging my feet on the chapter and eventually just forced myself to write it. I don't really have much to say this time around... so that's neat._**

 ** _Anyone who wanted to murder me after my last AN can feel free to go check the previous chapter for its edited version. It explains things a little more in-depth and gives the intent behind what I meant. As someone who has written as much as I have for this story, you'd think I'd be better at figuring out how people are going to perceive my intent. Apparently not. That being said, if you're still mad at the edited AN for the Fool's chapter I got nothing for you. More than willing to admit when I made a mistake, which I did, but I'm also not one to pretend to be penitent. In this instance, I am sorry for the poor way in which I conveyed my intent. I am much happier with how it sounds after the edit, so if you still don't like it... oh well, I aint changing._**

 ** _With that being said, welcome to chapter 27 of An Old Fox's New Trick. Special shoutout to NoGameNoLife. I told him I'd get this chapter out last night, and I didn't. So I stayed up until 4:30 AM, refusing to go to sleep until I finished it. I forced myself to read it through to make sure I was okay with it... I am for now, but maybe I'll have writer's remorse in the morning._**

* * *

 **Chapter 27**

 **An Unanswerable Question**

Ruby was used to being talked to like she was a kid. She was technically a kid, sure, but she didn't mean that she expected to be treated like an adult. People acted like she was all of seven years old when they spoke to her. The most obvious example was how everyone on Remnant acted like she had no idea what sex was. Somehow lack of interest was interpreted as lack of knowledge. People acted like the second you learned what sex was it would never again be distant from the forefront of your mind.

It just wasn't like that for her. Being a huntress was ranked at the top, tied with making friends. A close second was tinkering with her baby — the fact that her friends were ranked above that was the highest praise she could give. Between training, friends, weapons, and all the other stuff she had going on in her life there just wasn't any time for boys. That didn't mean she was completely disinterested.

When she actually was young enough to warrant the treatment she still received on a daily basis, she'd lost a race to Uncle Qrow for the gazillionth time. She'd vowed revenge against her uncle, swearing to overtake him when she was a huntress. Uncle Qrow laughed and said that bearing the expectations of kids was part of the job. Ruby had pouted, whined and challenged him to another race. When he won that one Ruby declared him her mortal enemy. His response didn't really make much sense to her.

" _Eh, I'm used to it Shortstack. The biggest men cast the longest shadows, and there ain't no one bigger than your Uncle Qrow."_

Her uncle's bragging wasn't anything new to her, even as much of a kid as she was at the time, so she didn't pay much attention. The thing was, after meeting Naruto… it made a lot more sense to her what Uncle Qrow had said.

He was stronger than her, a better leader, and- really, there was no point going over it again. She'd done it a billion times already. Ruby knew that there was no competition to be the best team — another strong team of huntsman was only good for Remnant — but it still kinda sucked how she got overlooked sometimes. Professor Goodwitch had practically been obsessed with Naruto when they started school. The headmaster had summoned Naruto to his office at least five flippin times. He somehow took the school bullies and made them kinda nice, now they looked at him like their boss.

She'd been jumped two years ahead so she could attend Beacon and she still felt small.

Funnily enough, Ruby didn't find that so bad. It wasn't like she expected to be the top huntress of their year or anything. Her sister had always been better in a fight and Pyrrha was… well, Pyrrha. Having seen her fight a few times in class, Ruby knew that her years of dominance in the arena was earned. If anyone went up against her it was an automatic loss for that person. Even Yang, RWBY's strongest member, couldn't take a match off of her. And as far as Naruto was concerned…

Nobody challenged him. Ever. Yang had told her that being at the top of her class had been a pain in Signal. If Ruby believed her stories, every week there was someone trying to take the position of top dog from her. Based on the fact that Ruby did believe Yang, one might think that meant she'd expected people to challenge Naruto on just as consistent a basis. She didn't expect it, not a bit. Pyrrha beat everyone she fought every single time, with one exception. Naruto beat Pyrrha every single time. So it made sense that unless you could beat his partner, challenging Naruto was pointless. It was so obvious that Naruto only fought if he challenged someone, or if Professor Goodwitch made him. The professor had stopped, and Naruto had only ever challenged that transfer student. Ruby didn't expect to see him fighting much from now on.

Two partners being the gatekeepers of the top two ranks meant that NNVR was the team to beat. RWBY and NNVR had never faced off against each other, but there wasn't even a question of what the results would be if they did. Ruby knew she'd get her butt kicked in every category. It wouldn't be a big deal if Pyrrha and Naruto were just too strong, she'd be fine with that. What bugged her was thinking that if Naruto and her led identical teams, he'd still win. There was no competition to be the best, but acknowledging that felt like admitting her own team would be better off if Naruto was their leader instead of her.

And that sucked.

Not being the best wasn't a big deal. Feeling like she wasn't the best for her teammates was. So for the second time that week, Ruby tried to hunt Naruto down. Also for the second time that week, that was much harder than it should have been. She dropped by the Nevermore dorm early in the evening only to find that no one was home. Ruby tried again an hour later — same result. When she was getting ready to go for round three, Yang was back from the library to notice.

"What you up to Rubes?"

"Just, you know? Getting some air…" Ruby responded. _And the award for most suspicious response of the year goes to…_

Yang shared her silent sentiments. "I wanna believe you wouldn't keep anything from your dear old sister…" she started, eyeing Ruby seriously. She couldn't keep it up for long, her serious facade fading into a playful smile. "But I wasn't born yesterday. If you are going to lie, you might wanna try a little harder. Then again, always being able to tell when you're hiding something is pretty sweet from this side of the fence. You know what, keep on keepin on Rubes."

Ruby's face scrunched up as she blew a raspberry at her sister. "I'm not that bad a liar," She insisted. When Yang raised a brow to contest her, Ruby responded with a wide-eyed puppy dog look. "Daaaad… do you know what happened to the rest of the ice cream? I wanted to save it for tonight but there isn't any left."

"You brat! He blamed me for that before going out to get you more!"

"Exactly." Ruby crossed her arms in smug victory. Being the cute daughter had its upsides. Upsides that had her sister ready to try and extract her retribution in blood, but they were still upsides.

Yang decided to collect her toll at a later time. Setting her bookbag on her bed, she turned to head right back out the door from which she'd just entered. "Don't think you're getting off free for that. Something came up that's way too juicy to ignore, so you get to have a temporary lease on life."

She didn't give Ruby the chance to respond before the door closed behind her. That didn't mean that the young reaper didn't have an idea what her sister was up to. It didn't take an entire childhood to figure out that Yang's two favorite spices of life were a bit of mischief and mayhem. There was a reason nobody in their household was surprised when they heard she'd completely trashed some upscale Vale bar. Ruby was pretty darn curious what had her sister's eyes dancing. Any other day she would have tried to figure it out. She resisted the temptation, today she had a plan and she was sticking to it.

There was no need to leave a note for or send a scroll message to her two unaccounted for teammates. Weiss had joined Yang in the library and was probably still occupied with her homework. Yang was the firstborn daughter of a school teacher, and that meant she could breathe homework when it was needed. Their dad had calmed down a bit by the time Ruby started school, so she didn't have it anywhere near as bad as Yang claimed to. Such was the curse of the eldest child — well, according to Yang.

Blake had been a little weird lately. The novels that almost always occupied her hands were replaced by newspapers and her scroll. Ruby didn't know what her teammate was looking for, but it didn't look like she was finding it. She'd been a little on edge recently — or as Yang had put it; catty. Blake's newest hobby consisted of scrolling through webpages of any news outlet she could get her claws on.

Ruby knew something was bothering her — it was obvious — it just didn't mean that she should get involved. She'd wanted to, of course, but when she asked Yang she was told that giving Blake her space was the smart thing to do. Her sister didn't specify why and Ruby didn't ask. She knew that Yang cared about Blake. They'd all grown closer since they became a team. None of them would intentionally hurt the other.

It wasn't like Ruby to ignore a problem, but maybe the reality that she was doing so was part of his influence. She wasn't sure what she should be doing about Blake. As her friend, Ruby had the overwhelming impulse to hug her until everything was better. If there was anything that Naruto had impressed upon her it was the difference between a leader and a friend.

She liked her friend Naruto. Naruto the leader scared her.

That fear didn't change her plan. Ruby needed to be a better leader. CRDL was improving, not so slowly closing the gap between them and RWBY with every week. It wasn't like they were anywhere near as good as Ruby's own team, more that what had been a massive gap between the two teams was now just large. Cardin wasn't as much of a butt as he'd been in the beginning, but that didn't mean she was ok with her team falling behind them. Weiss, Blake, and Yang were all great, super huntresses. They deserved a great leader.

Ruby wasn't the type to waste all her time with existential fussing. They deserved a good leader, so she'd just have to become better at it. Naruto had been a great leader during initiation, and that meant that Ruby could learn how he led without picking up the bad parts of his leadership. If she could figure out how he was making both CRDL and NNVR stronger, she could do something like it with RWBY. That's why she headed to Naruto's room for the third time that day.

All it took was approaching their door to reveal that there had never been a choice between talking to Naruto and finding out what Yang was up to. They were one in the same. Ruby could feel Yang's agitator spirit from behind the closed entrance. It was a safe bet that whatever 'juicy' thing she'd found involved Naruto in some way. Super… it wasn't like Ruby was there for something important or anything — except she totally was!

 _Oh well, no use crying over spilt milk._ Ruby went ahead and knocked on the Nevermore team's door. It had been silent before she knocked, and it was just as silent after. Recognition didn't come like she thought it would — one of them shouting through the door that it was okay to come in. Instead, the door cracked open just enough for a familiar pair of turquoise eyes and a tuft of orange hair to be visible.

"Heeeeeyyyy Ruby," Nora greeted her with a sweet tone and three quarters concealed smile courtesy of the hardly open door. "What's up?"

"Umm… is Naruto there?"

Nora's visible eye blinked. "The master philanderer is taking a timeout. Maybe you should drop by tomorrow?"

Ruby couldn't remember what that word meant off the top of her head, not that she was given much time to. "Kami, let her in. This whole thing is ridiculous enough without you saying things like that."

Nora's head turned towards the source of Naruto's voice. Through the small crack in the door, it was impossible to make out her expression. Maybe it was a good one? Ruby wanted to believe that because a few seconds later the door opened to allow her entry.

In her Saturday morning cartoons, it was a frequent occurrence to see a group of heroes joining together to bring the evil boss low. Depending on the show, the villain would then explode into a very convenient definitely-not-a-death light show or would reflect upon their actions and join the good guys. It was kinda a weird thing to think about, but seeing Naruto kneeling between Pyrrha's bed and his own with his head bowed low reminded her of such evil-doers reflecting on their actions.

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen." Yang waxed dramatically. Pyrrha glanced over to him, pulling her gaze from the textbook she had open in her cross-legged lap. If that look was a challenge, it was a challenge Naruto declined as he chose to remain silent.

"Why is Naruto on the ground?" Ruby asked, a bit unsure if she really wanted to hear the answer.

"That's my question," Naruto grumbled without raising his head. As Ruby watched Pyrrha's eyes beat into the back of his skull she had to agree he'd made the right choice in keeping his eyes on the ground.

"And from you, it's a stupid one," Nora sniped at him before addressing Ruby. "Naruto went out to dinner with Cinder."

"Yeah…" Ruby intoned for her to continue.

"Naruto assured us it was not a date," Pyrrha picked up where Nora left off. "Apparently, they were having some sort of business meeting."

"Which we were." Naruto defended, raising his head enough so that Ruby could see his blue eyes roll.

"I want to make it clear that I'm not taking sides," Ren started his sentence with a disclaimer. "But I don't think that was the standard means by which to conclude a work-related venture."

"Depends on the work," Yang commented unhelpfully. Ruby didn't even know what they were talking about and she knew her sister was stirring the pot. If years heaped on years of knowing her sister's antagonists tendencies weren't enough, Pyrrha's reaction certainly was.

"That's a great question; what kind of business were the two of you up to?" Ruby never knew a smile could be so scary until she saw the look Pyrrha gave Naruto.

It was obvious he felt the pressure too. The normally composed leader could upend help but stammer. "W-well, what's a good way to put this?" Naruto's defense started out poorly, Nora and Pyrrha glaring him down like a disappointed parent and jilted lover. "I think that the two of us are in similar fields- businesswise, I mean." Naruto rubbed the back of his head. It was a self-calming gesture that didn't seem to be doing him any good. "I was worried she might be… considering acting against the interests of my job?"

"You have a job?" Ruby asked. That was basically unheard of as far as she knew. Being a huntsman or huntress was a full-time job. Even Weiss, heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, didn't have much to do with her family's business as a huntress. There wasn't much time for anything else.

"I did." Naruto clarified pointedly, the past tense nature of his occupation seeming very importing to him.

"You said that you were a huntsman in training since the time you were twelve. How the hell did you have time for more work?" Yang echoed Ruby's thoughts.

"It wasn't really that big of a deal compared to what I was already doing. It was a pretty simple job where I just kept an eye on things that could be a problem for the place I was working for since I traveled around so much as a huntsman already. It was no more work than I was doing already."

Ren nodded, understanding what Naruto was saying. "Essentially, you supply an employer with information from your travels? Something like on the ground intelligence?"

"I just kept tabs on things that could become problems for us. If there was something that was going to cause them trouble or hurt our business I was supposed to let them know so they could decide what to do about it, maybe even step in if it was necessary." Naruto corrected him as casually as he could. It didn't work very well — even Ruby could tell he was nervous.

"You're saying this whole thing was just some kind of corporate feel up?" Nora's skepticism dripped off of every word she spoke.

"I told you she just wanted to feel me out when this all started." Naruto reminded her, finally lifting his head and looking a little irritated. "She could tell I might be a problem to her expansion plans. Because of that, she invites me to dinner to find out if we can do business together. I end up taking the initiative and make her an offer she isn't happy about, yet can't refuse. So after that, we're heading out for the evening — everything fine and dandy — until what do you know, you guys are there!"

"So you two tongue wrestling in the middle of the restaurant was her revenge?"

Ruby swore she misheard Nora. It almost sounded like she said Cinder and Naruto kis- "It does make sense. The impact of that kiss was foreseeable if you keep in mind our conversation earlier in the night." Pyrrha blushed bright crimson, not that Ruby noticed. The gears powering her own brain had come to a grinding halt. "If her aim was to annoy Naruto…"

"Mission accomplished." Naruto agreed, rising from his position on the floor and plopping himself down on his bed exhaustedly. Pyrrha's switch from ire to embarrassment was the abatement he'd been waiting for. "Seriously, I told you she was screwing with me."

"You really aren't one for innuendo, are you?" Yang chuckled. Ruby's mind was finally restarting after the blue screen that was hearing Naruto had kissed Cinder of all people. She didn't understand why the thought made her feel icky.

Before Naruto could predictably be confused by what Yang had said, Pyrrha forced herself into the conversation. "You didn't mean to kiss her?"

Naruto was about to play it off with a 'Kami, no!'. Ruby could tell by the way his face chambered an eye roll as he turned to face his partner. He stopped when he saw her face. He couldn't tell why it was an important question to her, yet he could tell how serious she was. "No."

Pyrrha's expression softened as she smiled warmly at him. "Then let's not talk about it. If she wanted to get under our skin by forcing herself on you, I see no reason to give her the satisfaction."

Of all the things Ruby might have expected Pyrrha to do, the choice she went with wouldn't have even made the top hundred. Ruby wasn't dumb enough to not notice the torch Naruto's partner held for him. The young reaper couldn't understand how such an observant leader did manage to miss it.

A blank check of forgiveness wasn't even close to what Ruby would have expected. Judging by the reactions of everyone around her — shock, disbelief, Nora rubbing her eyes in an attempt to wake herself up from a dream — no one else did either. Hellfire, brimstone, the end of days and other apocalyptic events seemed to be more along the lines of everyone's held expectations.

"Of course, I might need to have a little talk with her," Pyrrha's voice was so sweet Ruby thought she might get cavities. "Stealing the lips of someone who does not want it is basically sexual assault. I'd hate to see her thrown out of Beacon-" Ruby somehow doubted that. "So I'll just have to make sure she knows to never do anything like that again. Right, Naruto? I'll make sure she knows never to bother us again."

Naruto looked like he wanted nothing more than to return to his position in-between their beds and avoid Pyrrha's radiant smile. The normally confident Naruto quivered in absolute terror. "Actually… you know what, that's a battle for another day." Naruto's exhaustion overpowered his reason. It looked like he had more to say on the topic of Cinder, at least to Ruby. If anything, he looked too tired to argue the point rather than actually being done with it.

"Perfect," Pyrrha smiled. "Ruby, what brings you over here?"

 _Okay, that makes a lot more sense now._ Ruby realized why Naruto had folded like a bad hand of cards when Pyrrha talked to him. Her smile was as bright as the sun, yet when she focused it on Ruby it was obvious the brightness was accompanied by an equally intense heat. "I was just wondering if I could join you for your next training session?"

"You want us to join in with them?" Yang asked in surprise. Ruby had confided in her sister that she didn't want their team to fall under Naruto's umbrella. CRDL felt less and less like their own team — at least to Ruby — and more like Naruto's B-team. She was proud to be the leader of RWBY. That meant that if at all possible she wanted her team to make it through largely on their own.

"Not really," Ruby tried to keep her voice light and bubbly to make sure those thoughts didn't reach the NNVR team. "I just wanted to see how Naruto leads them in training and see if I could pick up a few pointers. That's all."

"Doesn't bother me. You all okay with it?" Naruto opened the question to his team.

"That's fine."

"Of course."

"The more the merrier!"

"Sounds like we're good to go." Naruto gave her the thumbs up. Like a puppet who'd had its strings cut he fell back onto his bed, his head hitting his pillow with a loud _thwump_. "If none of you mind, I'd love to go to bed. I'll send out the details of training tomorrow in a bit… right now… I'm done with today."

Nora giggled while Ren forthrightly shared Naruto's sentiments. Pyrrha looked ready to stay awake for the next five days on the powers of jealousy and feminine rage alone. It made kind of a neat line through their team where the men were exhausted and the women were ready to go.

Ruby was conscientious enough to tell that Naruto really did need a break. She left their team dorm while being forced to drag Yang with her. If she didn't, Ruby knew Yang would spend the rest of the night stirring the pot just to get a rise out of Pyrrha and Naruto. It wasn't often that the NNVR leader lost his dominant position. Ruby had good reason to doubt that her sister could contain herself.

The conversation hadn't gone the way she expected it to. Her request to audit their training was more of a tacked-on afterthought to the crazy night NNVR had been through. She'd gotten the results she wanted, score! With this, Ruby declared it was the start of RWBY's comeback. _CRDL, beware! You aren't catching us!_

* * *

Ruby was anxious. She was excited too, but that didn't mean the anxiety wasn't there. She had to force her moving pace down to a walk as she made her way to the outside track that had become Naruto's training area. After all, a leader doesn't run in front of their troops. She wasn't with her team right now, but you never knew who might see you. That was actually part of the advice she'd gotten from Naruto once they started texting last night.

" _You never know who might be watching you when you're not aware of it. If you act like someone is always watching you then you'll always seem like a leader."_

" _That sounds laaaaaame D:"_

" _It is."_

And she still did think it was pretty lame. Naruto didn't act like a leader all the time! Despite that, Ruby wanted to try doing everything in her power to act like a leader, at least for today. So she walked, carefully measuring the length and speed of her gait to what she thought would look the most commanding. That was also something Naruto had messaged her about.

" _If you want to avoid conversation with someone, walk fast. People often walk pretty slowly or up their pace all the way up to a jog or a sprint if they have somewhere they need to be. If you just walk fast it makes somebody think you're professional and are doing something important, even if you're not."_

Ruby was a little confused about that one, though it wasn't like it didn't make any sense. Sometimes you didn't have an answer ready for a question you knew someone might want to ask you. If you looked like your busy, maybe they'd feel awkward enough about asking that they might skip over it entirely. A lot of the little tips and tricks she'd gotten from Naruto last night were in that niche. The NNVR leader put a lot of focus on appearing like a leader so that people would trust him to lead when the time came.

Ruby was fifteen minutes early to the morning training, and yet she was still the last to arrive. Their first class was Port's grimm studies at nine in the morning. In order to get three hours in before that, CRDL and NNVR were supposed to meet up at five-thirty in the morning. Both teams were already there, stretching and hydrating when Ruby showed up.

She hadn't realized she stopped moving until Naruto waved a greeting to her and patted the bleacher next to him. Ruby habitually started to jog to him but slowed herself down to a walk as soon as she caught herself. Naruto smiled and gave her a thumbs up as she climbed to the middle bleacher where Naruto was and took a seat next to him. It was a chilly fall morning, and from where she'd been told to sit Ruby could feel the warmth of his body.

"Glad to see you showed up early."

Ruby shuffled her feet a bit as she looked out towards the field. "Not that early. I'm the last one here."

"Trust me, you're early," Naruto laughed. "I usually don't even show up until the starting time. Only reason I'm here so early is because I didn't want you to go down there and start warming up with them."

Ruby blinked. "I'm not training?" Wasn't that the entire reason she'd woken up when the sun wasn't even out?

"Not like they are. You wanted leadership lessons, right?" Ruby nodded. "So that means you get to sit in the commander's chair."

That was all Naruto said before projecting a ten-minute warning to the two teams. He didn't shout, that was something Ruby noticed. Naruto's voice had more volume and it traveled further without sounding like he was shouting. That was probably another way that he made sure nobody panicked when he gave them orders. Ruby flipped open her scroll and jotted it down as a note to remember.

The teams started off their day with laps around the track. It was pretty standard as far as warm-ups went, with the small detail that the runners were being harassed by a sand raccoon. Naruto's little spirit was rolling in the grassy center of the track, adding sand to the bodies of people at random intervals.

The quiet that came from sitting and watching people was unnerving to Ruby. She was more of a doer than a spectator. She grabbed the first topic that came to mind and ran with it. "How come everyone showed up so early?"

"To get their stretching in," Naruto answered. It couldn't have been more clear that he thought he was giving a simple answer to a simple question.

"I saw them stretch," Ruby reminded him in a deadpan tone. "I meant why'd they show up early to do it?"

"Because they wouldn't have time to do it otherwise?" Naruto's response was more of a question. "I don't know what you're asking me about here."

"Ughhh!" Ruby groaned in exasperation. Sometimes Naruto was inhumanly dense! "Why not just start out the training with stretches instead of running?!"

"We did… Oh!" Naruto smacked his fist down on his open palm as the mental circuit finally completed. "You mean why not start out the session with stretching at the time I set it for?"

"Yes!" Ruby pounced on the understanding that was long past overdue.

"Check the message I sent you and see if you can figure it out yourself," Naruto instructed her. Ruby didn't really get it, though she complied anyway. She'd chosen to try and learn from him, might as well go along with what he said. He'd sent out a group message to CRDL, herself, and his own team shortly after she'd left their dorm last evening.

" _Training will be switched from after class to the morning for those who want to attend. Bring your weapons. We may use them. Session will be about three hours in length. Bring whatever food or drink you require in anticipation of that. Be present and ready to start at 5:30."_

Ruby had noticed that Naruto's sentences were sorta fragmented in text form. There was only one thing about the message that really stuck out. "You said to be ready to start at five-thirty."

"Yup." Naruto nodded his head with the pride of a teacher having successfully conveyed knowledge to their pupil. Except not, because Ruby still didn't get it.

"But why didn't that mean ready to start warming up at five-thirty?"

"Because that's not what I asked them. I told them to be ready to start at a certain time, not to just be here. If you tell your team 'be ready to break down camp by six', you don't mean wake up at six. I gave specific instructions, they followed them specifically. If you ever have to give orders, that's exactly how you want the delivering and receiving of them to go."

"Ok," Ruby committed it to memory while jotting down notes on her scroll. NVR and CRDL were ready when he told them to be ready. If he'd told them to be ready to stretch at a certain time, they'd be ready to do that. Crisp and clear communication was something that she'd never really bothered to do with her team. It felt like they all just kind of _got_ each other. Maybe relying on that was wrong? "Why did you ask them to do it this way?"

"Now that's a good question!" Naruto prided her with a grin and a tousle. Ruby swore his hand was made of magic — head pats shouldn't feel that good! "I actually learned this from a guy I met who was hellbent on giving me advice about everything I needed to lead people. I didn't really get it either, so I asked him the same question."

"Is it complicated?"

Naruto's forehead wrinkled as he considers the question. "Not exactly complicated… just something I would never have thought of. If I told them to show up at five to start stretching, they might get it in their head that they just need to show up. By telling them to be ready, each of them feels more accountable for themselves."

Ruby found an error with that line of thinking. "But what if they didn't know they were supposed to stretch before training? I didn't."

"Then they don't stretch, maybe pull a muscle, and have to deal with some pain," Naruto shrugged nonchalantly. "Better to get a muscle tear inside school than break down camp late and get ambushed because of it."

It didn't take a prophet to figure out that Ruby wasn't one to think like that. The way her face tightened in uncertainty and her eyes avoided his own was adorable in its own way. "Look… I know you aren't big on seeing people in pain. I'm not a fan of it either. Problem is that you don't get to fight wars and expect everyone is just going to skin their knees. I'd rather see Pyrrha sprain her ankle here because she's finding her limits if the alternative is her doing it on a mission where we have to work around that injury for the next week. Seeing your friends in pain sucks, sure, so put your team through pain in situations you can control."

That was the difference between the two of them that Ruby was struggling with. Wasn't there some way he could help them all get better that didn't hurt? No pain no gain was fine when you considered exercise. There was a world of difference between pushing yourself in training and what Naruto had done that dark, stormy night.

Was she wrong? That was a question Ruby didn't want to ask herself. Every day she felt that question more and more warranting or an answer she didn't want to give it. NNVR was stronger and would probably always be stronger than RWBY. Naruto was like a freak of nature superhero or something. She had no such excuse for CRDL. Her own team had started better off than the all boys team.

Ruby was here to answer a complicated question; was Naruto's training responsible for the growth of those he helped, or his frame of mind? She wanted to see if she could take the way he trained his team without taking the mindset that came with it. So far, so good. Nothing he'd said was anything she couldn't deal with. She did need to put her team through some tougher training.

There was one positive thing that Ruby almost thought she'd imagined. "Did you say we're your friends?"

Naruto looked at her for a moment before jerking his head the other way. "You twerps may have grown on me. A little." He spoke into the air away from her as he held out two fingers with such little space between them it may have easiest to measure it in millimeters.

"Pfffft!" Ruby's snorted laughter found a way out of her mouth through her immense effort to contain it. Naruto growled as he shortened the distance between his two fingers to an even smaller amount. All that did was make Ruby laugh harder as she gave up on restraining the building storm of laughter that poured out of her. "Bwaha- bwahahahaa hahahahah!"

Naruto glowered at her as she attempted to reign in her more-than-giggles. When she finally did the only sounds remaining was that of her classmates exercising on the track below. Ruby couldn't think of anything to ask at that point. Starting a session with cardio was normal, though the extra weight from the sand also made it a sort of resistance training. It was a bit weird how Naruto didn't train with them… maybe that was something worth asking about?

"Hey Naruto, why aren't you doing this with them?" She went for it. It felt weird watching people working hard while she sat around doing nothing. Any conversation topic was better than just sitting there in silence.

"My physical conditioning is too far above my team's." Naruto leaned his back against the bleacher behind him. "If I went down there and trained with them, they'd try to keep up with me and fail. Cardin and Sky being the best in this workout is a real big plus for NVR when you realize that CRDL looks pretty below their own in specs on paper. Anyone who is competitive is going to feel pretty bad about being behind Sky since he looks so weak. Pyrrha would be competitive no matter what, but it helps keep people like Ren, Nora, and even Russel engaged."

That was… sad. On a whole lot of levels, actually. Naruto had just called Sky weak — a heavy insult in a school based around fighting. It wasn't the kind of thing you said about your friends! Even though that's what she thought consciously, Ruby couldn't deny that she'd been surprised that Sky was pulling ahead of everyone to keep pace with Cardin. It was an unwelcome reminder that she also thought he was weak, even if she'd never say it.

More than that, it was the distance Naruto put between himself and his team that bummed Ruby out. The intentional contrast between his normal self and his leader persona had never been more apparent to her. He wasn't up here avoiding them because he didn't like them — he was separating himself off because he thought it was better for them.

"Don't worry about doing it like this with your team when you train them," Naruto advised her. "Short of running speed, I don't think you top your teammates anywhere else."

"Hey! I'm RWBY's sharpshooter too!" Ruby reminded him indignantly. She doubted there was anyone at Beacon better with a gun.

Naruto was unimpressed. "I think I'd care more if I'd seen anyone lose to a gun in my life. I've watched at least twenty fights in class that are just someone shooting bullets that get dodged or deflected by aura until somebody ends the fight decisively in close range or with their semblance. I don't think you've won a fight using your gun yet."

Ruby swallowed air as her mind scrambled to find a retort. She was the sniper, the sharpshooter, the gun girl. Had she really not closed out a single match with her baby's sniper form? She ran through her mental catalog of all the fights she'd had that year only to realize she couldn't recall a single one where bullets made a difference.

The existential crisis that caused was more than enough to fill the silence for the next fifty minutes of running, jogging, walking, and for some the eventual collapsing. Pyrrha, Nora, Cardin, and Sky were the only four to still be on their feet by the end of the hour. The rest had been called to stop at varying times for each of them. Russel had been the first to drop, with Ren not ten seconds after. It had happened so immediately after that it was like the quietest member of NNVR was waiting for it.

"Everyone grab your water, hydrate, and take a quick break. Ruby and I will be selecting the next phase of our training while you take five." Naruto's voice once again washed over everyone present. It was weird hearing someone speak so loud without yelling. The way it filled her ears made it take focus in her mind. She quickly added a note about it on her scroll.

"What do you think they should do next?" Naruto asked her. The way he spoke didn't make any attempts to conceal that it was a test of a question.

"Ummm… with RWBY I'd have us practice our weapons training after something like that." Ruby cursed herself for starting her sentence with 'ummm'. It was a bad habit of hers when she didn't know what she was supposed to say.

"Why?" He asked her directly. The no-nonsense way in which he spoke had her fidgeting in place.

"I mean, isn't it always good to practice with your weapons?"

"No," Naruto responded with one word. There was an awkward pause between them, filled only minorly by the sound of plastic or metal bottles and the water contained within them. "What does Yang do during a practice like that?"

"She's always shadowboxing," Ruby answered immediately. Yang never took it easy during their weapon practice. She was always on her feet and moving, fighting opponents that could not be seen.

"Shadowboxing is great. I knew a lot of people who had it as a main part of their practice," Ruby could hear the 'but' coming before he'd even said it. "But it's best used to refine techniques you've already learned. It doesn't really help you learn how to do new things. I guess it could work for someone who has excellent visualization…" Naruto ceded. "Yang doesn't strike me as the type, though."

His next words drove a stake through Ruby's heart. "I could be wrong saying this; when I look at RWBY you all fight the exact same way you did when you entered Beacon. You may get along better as a team or something — I don't really know — I just know that none of you feel any stronger than you did a month ago."

It was the exact thing she'd been worried about — the reason she wanted to do this in the first place. RWBY was a strong team with strong members, so why did she feel like everyone was getting better except for them?

"Don't beat yourself up over it," Naruto didn't console her. It sounded more like a statement. "You're young, you didn't know what to do. It wasn't like I was any better at it when I was your age. I was even worse now that I think about it. Watch how I do this and try and figure out why I do it. If you figure out the why, the how is easy."

In an act she was becoming increasingly used to, Naruto didn't wait for her acknowledgment before standing up and clapping his hands once. The two teams gathered around in front of them without a single word needing to be said. There was a striking look in all of their eyes that Ruby didn't see in her own training sessions.

It wasn't like her team didn't take practice seriously. Blake, Weiss, and Yang all trained hard until it was time for them to wrap things up. The difference was how each and every person there looked to Naruto. Everyone was waiting for him to guide them, implicit trust outweighed only by the earned respect shown clearly in their eyes. RWBY did their own thing to improve, these teams followed a leader.

"Some changes to the menus today, so listen up!" Naruto started as his eyes scanned over the seven of them. "First off: Pyrrha and Cardin, you two will be sparring for the next two hours. Pyrrha, please do something to make sure this guy doesn't make such an ass of himself with that shield of his. It hurts my eyes to see that in class."

"Asshole," Cardin swore loud at the same time Pyrrha nodded to Naruto's words.

"I want you to try and use iron dust to make your weapons as much as possible during the session so you get something out of it. I know the musclehead can't match you normally, might as well give him a handicap. Make sure you don't lose." Pyrrha's spirit blazed as she partnered off with Cardin.

"Ren and Russel, I want you two to work on your speed. Five minutes on, ten minutes off sparring until we end for the day. Keep track of the number of times you score on each other with speed, and keep a separate tally for finesse. That should give you both a clear vision of what category you're lacking in." Russel looked ready to rumble while Ren's face was completely blank.

"Dove and Nora will be a fun mismatch. Dove has all the finesse where Nora has all the stamina. Go fight each other straight and get a better grasp of your weaknesses. Seriously Dove, work on your stamina a bit more. You'd be top of the class and Cardinal's ace if you fixed it."

Dove's reaction couldn't be described in a sentence. Ruby saw his face fall — a slight dropping of the corners of his lips when Naruto commented on his stamina. The consternation yielded to a small upturning of his lips when Naruto said he could be his team's ace before concluding with Dove tilting his head in acknowledgment. In a few sentences, it felt like Naruto had helped him find motivation he'd not had before.

"Sky, nothing exciting for you," The CRD boys chuckled as Sky stared Naruto dead on. It was weird for Ruby to watch. He had an almost zealous focus on Naruto's every word. "I want you to focus on strength training, specifically pull-ups for your upper body. Separate your squats with lunging laps for your lower body and stop when you can't move anymore. Cardin will pick you up when he finishes up with Pyrrha."

Sky's reaction to being told to work himself into the ground was to turn away and start lunging. Once everyone figured out that Naruto had nothing left to say they all moved to follow the regiments they were given. Nobody had any questions. Nobody second-guessed what he said. There was not a single complaint about being told to spar for hours even after some of them had collapsed on the track just minutes before.

"Every one of them is different. I can't tell them to go practice with their weapons and hope that makes them good enough to fight grimm," Naruto said as he hopped off the bench and onto the grass beneath them. "If you want someone to get stronger, you have to be able to tell them what they are weak at. Once you've done that all you can do is hope they are smart enough to listen."

Ruby had never done that with her team. They were all awesome and smart and strong and what the heck could she even hope to teach them that they didn't already know? Except she knew that wasn't true. She knew Yang was too quick to anger and let her semblance get the better of her. Ruby and her combat skirt partner both sucked at hand to hand — becoming practically worthless when they were disarmed. If she thought about Blake, Ruby was sure she'd figure out something to comment on.

"Have I just been scared?" Ruby asked, afraid of the answer she'd receive. It was the only reason she could think of for having not said anything.

"I don't think so," Naruto stated just as confidently and plainly as he had before. "We don't really look for weaknesses in our friends because it's just not something we do. The thing is that you're not just their friend, you're their leader. You've got more responsibilities than being their friend. Don't forget that." Naruto sighed, looking towards the scattered members of his team as they all had locked themselves in combat.

"If you do, one of them might end up dead." Naruto spoke so quietly Ruby didn't know if she was supposed to hear him. He hadn't faced her when he spoke, he didn't look at her before, during, or after. The words just floated out of his mouth and hovered on the breeze blowing coldly through on that late autumn morning. Naruto closed his eyes, letting the wind regale him with the sound of what he'd said. A tentative reminder to himself of what happened when you forgot your responsibilities.

* * *

"Alright you brats, hit me with your best shot." Naruto goaded the three genin spread around him. He wasn't exactly one for calling children brats — that was more Kurama's thing — still…

"Stop underestimating us!" Bastion demanded as he dashed at Naruto head on. His two friends panicked, both of them having wanted to disengage and think of a plan before picking a fight with Naruto. _The hotheadedness of youth._ Naruto thought to himself. It had an undeniable resemblance to the way his own team had handled Kakashi in their first test.

Bastion was a lot better than he'd been at the age of twelve. Four shuriken flew out in semi-circular arcs to converge on Naruto and were quickly followed up with two kunai covering his approach from straight on. It was timed perfectly so that all six would strike him at the same time with next to no break before Bastion would arrive himself.

 _That brat is pretty good._ Kurama approved of the kid's actions from his perch lazing in a nearby tree. Bastion really was something else. He would have been pretty impressive even when compared with the ridiculously powerful generation Naruto had grown up in. Technique-wise he was a little bit below Neji at that age while having a tactical mind just three rungs below Shikamaru's. Three whole steps below someone might have sounded like quite a drop, but come on, it was Shikamaru! The kid was almost a genius by any other standard.

Genius wasn't even close to enough to make up for experience and power. In each of his hands, Naruto conjured a small Rasen-Shuriken and flung them both to obstruct the two paths of Bastion's shuriken. Detonating his two wind-style techniques as they came close to the physical shuriken generated enough power to blow them completely off course. Of course, he could have just stepped backwards and saved himself the work. He wasn't sure why he didn't do that… probably because he wanted to look as cool as Kakashi-sensei to these kids.

With the flanking shuriken taken care of, all Naruto had to do was duck below the oncoming kunai as he wound up a big punch. It had taken him a lot of practice to get used to fighting with genin. The massive delay between his attacks and figuring out exactly how much power to put into his techniques had been trying to put it lightly.

 _Maybe I should have put a little more oomph into that punch._ Naruto second-guessed himself as a glint of light caught his eye while he kunai sailed harmlessly over his head. He spared a quick glance to verify that other two were still stationary. Naruto had deadened his chakra sense so that the kids at least had a chance to land a sneak attack on him. It wasn't enough to stop his trained eyes from seeing the thin thread of chakra tying itself to the loop end of the kunai after it had passed over him.

Turned out that the shock those kids had been showing was a ploy to try and catch him off guard. He knew that because chakra thread was the specialty of the kid with the glasses. Puck or something. They all had really weird names. Those two had decided to open with a bamboozle. _And it worked. Damn am I bad at spotting lies._

Reaching behind his head, Naruto caught the two kunai as the chakra thread caused them to reverse and attempt to attack his exposed back. Sharpening his own chakra he cut through the threads on the knives to gain complete control of them as he braced for impact from the front. Bastion's knee was already on a diagonal trajectory for the side of his face. Naruto jammed the loop of the kunai into the offending joint. It wasn't all that dangerous, but boy did it smart.

That was Naruto's plan, at least. Bastion's knee rose as his upper body lowered closer to the ground. The change in path caused the kid's knee to miss his head, and Naruto's recently claimed kunai to miss the kid's knee. It was still a win for Naruto — Bastion's knee had ruined his stance and gave Naruto an easy opening to punish him before he could reset.

It should have. It really should have. Bastion probably figured that out himself, jumping off his left foot to go completely airborne so that he could torque his body into a spinning hook kick. Surprised, Naruto opted for the cross-block to intercept the leg and stop Bastion's momentum. The kid would fall straight to the ground because of the way he'd forced his body to be almost completely parallel to it.

And finally, something went to plan. Bastion dropped to the ground as anticipated, immediately moving to push himself over with his right hand so that he could respond to Naruto's attack. "Too slow!" Naruto shouted as he dropped his hammer of a fist down.

"Not so, Naruto-sama." The third member of their squad's voice sounded in his ear. His whole arm was frozen in ice to the point where he couldn't bend his elbow.

 _What the hell?_ Naruto questioned his sanity more than being worried about an actual threat. He could swear he had just marked her out of the corner of his eye when he ducked those kunai. A glance towards where she'd been located showed once more that she was still there. Then, like a vision on a hot sunny day, she distorted like the mirage she was before disappearing. _Kurama, come on!_

 _If you need me to deal with genin's genjutsu, you deserve to be caught in it._ Kurama sniffed as he both figuratively and literally looked down his nose at Naruto.

"Tch," Naruto clicked his tongue, annoyed at himself. With Kurama's help and ability to disrupt his chakra he was all but immune to genjutsu. As a result, he'd never bothered to learn any other countermeasures for it. He had the ultimate countermeasure as it was!

"I told you not to underestimate me!" Bastion howled his victory as he brought his fist straight into Naruto's gut. The Maelstrom leader sailed back into the air, only to disappear in a puff of smoke. "Crap, clone!"

"Tooooooooooo late." The three of them could hear the mocking grin on Naruto's voice as their heads whipped towards the source. All but one, that was. Puck had found his own skull gripped in an iron claw vice so tight that even staying still hurt.

"Owowow! Naruto-sama, that hurts!"

"Look, stop calling me 'sama' already. I'm nobody's master. Also, why aren't you two watching your backs?" Naruto asked the remaining two members of the squad.

Before the two of them could so much as think of turning around they too found themselves treated to a cranium crusher of a grip. "Oh give me a break, Naruto-sama! Using your clones against genin?!"

"Some moron told me not to underestimate you. Thought I'd take that baka's words to heart." Naruto teased as he twisted Bastion's head in the palm of his hand.

"Yeowch! Itai, itai!" Bastion fumbled his hands around Naruto's grip in a completely fruitless effort to loosen the grip that held him in place.

"Alright kids, a deal's a deal. You lost, again, so you have to do another foraging mission."

"Please, just squeeze a little harder so that my brain starts coming out of my ears. End my suffering." Bastion begged for mercy. The two clones dispelled, leaving only the real Naruto holding Puck by his head. Fortunately for the spectacled boy, Naruto released his grip and patted him on the back.

"Not a chance. If you want to stop going on these missions stop challenging me already. No way you bunch of twerps pull one over on Naruto Uzumaki!"

"Cmon Bastion, we're too weak to fight Naruto-sama." Puck tried to impress the surety of that statement on his leader.

"Everybody is too weak to fight Naruto-sama." The girl attempted to soften the blow.

"Listen to Milea, ya brat. I'll give you a fight whenever you want one, but you're never gonna win." Naruto grinned pompously.

Bastion was a good kid, a great shinobi, and above all, he was a hothead. "We'll beat you, you'll see! Why don't you teach us some stronger moves, or your shadow clones, or some other super jutsu!"

Naruto dropped his hand onto Bastion's head and rustled it lovingly through his hair. He'd never had a son. If he had… it was pretty easy to imagine some uppity kid always talking about learning jutsu and getting stronger would be the apple not falling far from the tree. "You three are plenty strong," He reassured them with a warm smile. "Way better than I was when I was your age."

"Really?" Puck asked with a hopeful glint in his eyes. Naruto was a hero to these kids, to a lot of the villagers. Plenty of kids in the village almost had to spend their childhood growing up without their parents on account of the detail that the Cloud wanted to throw their parents in jail for protesting. He was a hero to them.

"You must have been a powerful shinobi as a child, Naruto-sama. To say that we could equal you…" Milea's voice trailed off in unreserved reverence.

"I really wasn't anything to write home about when I first became a genin. I could hardly use any jutsu at all, and even the ones I could use I used poorly. I think I spent a better part of a year on shadow clones and my crappy taijutsu. You guys are a hell of a lot better than I was, trust me."

"Really?" Bastion copied Puck's reaction. "So that means we could be as good as you are when we're jonin?"

"Why not? Just keep training hard and go at your own pace. So long as I'm here you all have nothing to worry about."

The three kids beamed up at him. Three seeds of the first generation of his village. They'd all grow up to be splendid shinobi. He wasn't sure if it was a kekkei genkai or some insane manifestation of multi-elemental control at a young age, but Milea's ability to control ice was a gift. The way that Puck used his chakra strings reminded him a bit of Chiyo-baasan. Maybe he'd be a puppeteer when he grew up just like that old bag.

Bastion was like looking in a mirror. He was quick to anger, passionate, yet ultimately kind of heart. His aptitude for being a ninja was like anything other than looking in a mirror. It took traveling with and being trained by Ero-sennin for Naruto to find his own talents. Maybe he'd be able to pass the village on to a kid like that someday. It wasn't like he was going to die or anything, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to lead forever.

It was a funny enough thing to watch the three of them talk about plans to get stronger. They were already approaching a chunin level of competence in a measly six months. That was fast enough in Naruto's opinion. They were kids. There was no point spending all their time training for war.

He'd taken the Uchiha eyes Sasuke had offered and with them the Indra chakra. He now existed as an immortal deterrent to all wars until the end of time. Naruto had to learn his skills to save the world. These kids only needed skills sufficient enough to make a living and provide for their future families.

 _They're plenty strong enough._ Naruto reminded himself. It wasn't like the time he grew up in, not anymore.

* * *

"What's going on?!" Naruto barked at the shinobi who had burst into his office. He'd burst through the doors while Naruto was in the middle of a clone paperwork push. Words had failed the shinobi, his mouth opening while no sound managed to come out. Naruto was a seasoned veteran of crisis situations. As such, he knew that even if he couldn't speak the shinobi clearly wanted him to follow.

The shinobi enhanced his feet with chakra to carry his body as fast as it would allow. Never before had anyone tore down the stairs of his office/house like that in the years he'd been leading. That small detail served to accentuate the gravity of what was happening, even if Naruto still knew not what that was.

They made their way to the northern entrance of the village. It was an opening in the large palisade that Naruto had constructed to create a physical barrier between the village and the outside. When he saw what was at its entrance, his heart stopped beating.

Bastion and Puck kneeled over a bloody Milea, the former cradling her head in his hands while the latter applied pressure to the wound on her stomach. Naruto supplied his foot with so much chakra that the ground caved beneath him as he cleared the distance between them in a single leap.

"What happened?" Naruto asked as he removed Puck's hand from the wound. The blood looked like it was leaking from the wound. From what he understood about wounds as large as the one she had, that was not a good thing. The heart should be pumping blood, which meant that the wound would increase its flow with the beat of her heart. The fact that it wasn't…

"We were ambushed by a group of shinobi. T-they had no headbands, t-they n-never spoke, and t-their faces were covered. W-we managed to beat them back, b-but not b-before." Puck stuttered out through his chattering teeth.

Naruto activated his sage mode, reaching his chakra out to stabilize her as he'd done with Guy-sensei all those years ago. Nothing. The chakra made quick work of her wound, her flesh sealing the giant laceration shut as it fused together once more. Naruto lowered his cheek to her mouth. Nothing. Naruto moved his hand to her neck and checked for a pulse.

Nothing.

He couldn't accept it, he wouldn't accept it. He pooled his chakra into her heart, willing it to beat through the sheer indomitability that was his strength. He tried to reach physically start her heart by pumping on her chest with his hands. He tried anything and everything he could think of, but the result was the same.

Nothing.

"Milea has passed on, Naruto-sama." Aluguard's voice comforted him as his hand was placed on his shoulder. His advisor's touch brought him back to reality. A cold, dark reality that he had thought was a thing of the past. Naruto reached down to close her eyes-

"No!" Bastion wailed. "She can't be dead! Naruto-sama can still save her, right?"

"I'm sorry…" Was all he could say. He had jutsu to save one from near death, to fight those who might harm, to protect those in danger. He could do almost anything with jutsu. Despite all of the things he could do, he could not reverse death.

"No! No no no!" Bastion shouted hysterically, tears streaming down his face and wetting the ground beneath him. "You said we'd all be safe! You said you'd keep us safe!"

"Bastion!" Aluguard bellowed at the boy. "This is no fault of Naruto-sama's. When Milea chose to live as a shinobi she knew that there were risks. This is a tragedy, and rest assured that those responsible will be held accountable." Aluguard promised, revenge bubbling dangerously beneath the surface of his eyes. "It's not Naruto-sama's fault. It's not your fault." He finished softly.

All Bastion could do was slam his fists on the ground and cry. Tears flowed down his face in a constant stream with no signs of stopping. Like a dam that had been destroyed the crowd of villagers that had built around them followed suit. Bitter tears of loss inundated the ground as it darkened under the weight of their sorrow.

When Bastion looked up from the ground it was with fury. He stared at Naruto, the vessels in his eyes a bright red. "Why?" He asked Naruto. He didn't understand. He couldn't understand.

"Why didn't you make us stronger?"

* * *

 ** _I'd mentioned a girl died in Naruto's village many chapters back. I thought it would be time to give that context to explain a few more of Naruto's behaviors. Sorry once more for getting this out a day or two late. I'd said I wasn't going to repeat the mistake of Chaperone, and I meant it. For those who wish to support me, feel free to go to _****_p a treon . com (slash) Faulkner to do so. See you guys next time!_**


	30. Forced Moves

_**Greetings and Salutations! Welcome to chapter 28 of OFNT. Beyond belief is the fact that I'm actually on time this week. Wow!**_

 _ **Two important bullets to hit. For those wondering, I did not write any continuity errors in the last chapter. I've got nothing more to say on that. If that means something to you, then you've been paying pretty decent attention to some details. Good job!**_

 _ **Secondly, props to Agent Orden for a fantastic review in which he realized a little easter egg I smuggled in near the beginning of the story. He noted that each of the biju took a liking to a female RWBY member that embodied their own faulty style of living. I was surprised somebody noticed that this late in the game.**_

 ** _This chapter we get to have fun with R &R&R. All the R names get developed today! For those who are curious, the pairing is official now and cannot be turned. Who knows when I'll actually write it in, but it is decided. Huzzah!_**

* * *

 **Chapter 28**

 **Forced Moves**

Their clash of metal was more than just the sound of steel. Russel dashed, lunged, stepped in, and leaped in as he attempted to blow a hole through Ren's defenses. Naruto had told them to engage in a contest of speed, and they were. Their melee consisted of a handful of blows per second, a speed that could not be matched by those who wielded swords or fists. Russel Thrush wielded twin daggers. Recently, he'd began to understand what that meant.

An almost forgettable detail existed, hidden in plain sight behind the crazy polarity, sand control, and general kick-assery that was Naruto Uzumaki; he was a knife user. Other than the one time Russel had seen him fight with his swords, it was the throwing knives that were the weapons of choice. Since they used similar weapons and shit, Russel was the only one who actually got a focus on weapons training.

" _People underestimate the value of the knife. The ones who talk it up are generally just morons ranting on about its portability making it easy to conceal for a surprise attack. Then you get those chuunbiyo types and politicians who ramble about the value of a 'well-placed knife'. That's all crap — a knife is the most versatile weapon in any situation. If I had to go heads up against someone with a hammer, a sword, a shield, or anything else, the only thing I'd want would be my kunai."_

Smart guys probed their opponents, searching for an opening they could exploit — that's what Naruto said. He'd followed that up by telling Russel he was too much of an idiot for that right now, and then Russel followed that up with enough swear words to fill a lexicon. It probably pissed him off so much because the bastard had a point. This pretty-boy was doing his damndest to rub his fucking nose in it.

Russel had just disengaged, building a distance of no more than a meter between the two of them. He knew he should have the advantage in close range, but it sure as shit didn't feel like it. Pretty-Boy's pistols had a blade extension coming out of the underside of their barrels. When you stacked those abominations up against the flexibility that came from something as simple as a dagger hilt, it was a no-brainer that Russel's attack angles were more unpredictable and varied.

So why the hell couldn't he connect?

 _No, seriously, what the fuck is going on?_ Russel swore, dashing in to erase the meter of separation he'd just created. He flipped the dagger in his right hand into a reverse grip and swung it wide, aiming to jam it into Ren's neck. With his left, he kept a standard grip while keeping the blade tucked in close to his body. The compact position of his arm would give him an explosive power to block Pretty-Boy's counterattack or let him launch a secondary offense of his own.

Pretty-Boy brought his right pistol blade to intercept Russel's forearm in a cross-block. Russel wasn't sure of the spacing, but instinct told him that the pistol-blade would find his arm before his dagger dug into Pretty-Boy's neck. By now that was obnoxiously typical of any attack pattern that he'd tried to go with. No matter what, Pretty-Boy countered it with little effort.

This time was gonna be different. Russel might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but a little thinking never hurt anyone. He mighta been a bit dumb… but that cross-block — he'd seen it coming. This was their fourth set, that meant he'd had more than enough time to get a feel for Pretty-Boy. That dude was a counter-attacker to the core.

Russel dropped his upper-body, lowering his center of mass and the trajectory of his attack while screwing with Pretty-Boy's perception of his speed. By dashing in and dropping his upper-body at the same time, it made him almost twice as fast! _Pretty damn smart of me._ Russel preened.

His left dagger exploded upwards towards the underside of Pretty-Boy's cross block. It was the perfect trap; if Pretty-Boy jumped backwards the distance Russel's dash and fall covered would be too much to make up in that instant. The dude's left weapon had been moved to his right side during the block to prevent any attacks on that flank. Even if Pretty-Boy managed to block the attack from the right, there was nothing he could do about the one coming under his guard. _That means dead center is the way to go!_

Pretty-Boy's cross block couldn't come down in time to meet his blade. That was exactly what Russel had planned for. What was beyond his meager anticipatory skills was that the dude wouldn't even try. He aimed his gun-blade to bisect his arm instead of going for a futile defense. _Brutal. He's offering to trade damage with me. Looks like Pretty-Boy has a nasty side._

That was still a win for Russel. His attack had a lot more time to build momentum. Not only that, but the power of his attack was focused on the tip of his dagger. The guillotine drop of the pistol-blade had less room to build up power and was going to be distributed over a larger area, giving Russel's aura a much easier defense. No way was he losing out in this exchange.

Where he did lose was down the center, the place he'd expected to win. A rising knee met the pommel of his dust-dagger and forced Russel's blade up earlier than he'd expected. With the center threat defused, Pretty-Boy was free to sway to the right, guaranteeing that his guillotine would be the only thing connecting. Suddenly, it was no longer a trade, but one-sided damage being dealt to Russel.

He didn't have time to think, and he didn't need to. Instinct took over and Russel took his avenue out without a moment's hesitation.

He let his forward fall continue straight into the ground, dodging the downward attack of Ren in the process.

* * *

 _This is… annoying._ Ren admitted to himself as he watched Russel fall gracelessly on the ground, the mohawked boy's face next to his feet. His attack targeting Russel's right arm couldn't chase the CRDL member down without lowering his striking range. Due to the rising knee, Ren had delivered, he needed to reset his stance to launch an attack to the ground or risk the possibility of unbalancing himself.

Ren didn't hesitate to do so. He lowered his raised leg back to the ground, bending his knee in a forward lunge to drop his weapons back into striking range of Russel. The mohawked member of CRDL was already rolling away like a child going down a hill, evading any chance of Ren's follow up unless he sprung into pursuit. That option was one he declined.

It was a large part of why he was so irritated at the whole situation. Ren had won the first round easily, handily won the second, and barely won the third round of their training spars. He was the superior fighter by no small margin. Comparing the two of them was akin to taking note of the differences between a seasoned martial artist specialized in self-defense and a street thug who brawled in his spare time. Ren had the advantage in technique, knowledge, skill, and tactics.

Russel was a ball of instincts and stamina, neither of which Ren had expected. He'd made it a point to beat Russel in their preliminary sand-run. The conclusion that he had similar stamina to Russel was reasonably derivative from that point. It turned out to be a humiliating lesson in the difference between sound and valid logic. There were factors in play that Ren had not taken into consideration.

As he readied himself for Russel's umpteenth dash there was one difference that couldn't be ignored; their difference in recovery time. With only five minutes of activity to ten minutes of rest, Ren had estimated that he'd be able to continue for at least two hours. He was worn from the previous exercise, but Russel was obviously just as worn. After all, he'd dropped out moments before Ren.

Ren blocked the oncoming forward assault head-on, preparing to diffuse whatever attack would be coming from Russel's free hand. The CRDL member had so many opening that Ren was able to tactically exploit. In their third and fourth bout, he'd chosen to remain almost entirely stationary while Russel jumped around him with all the fervor of a crazed Nora hunting pancakes. Ren defused each and every one one of his attacks with graceful ease. By the end of every match, his opponent was reduced to a heavily breathing heap on the grass.

And then at the beginning of every round, he charged Ren down like nothing had happened previously. Ren was still reeling from the sand-run, and he'd assumed that Russel's fighting tempo would be low for much the same reason. As it turned out, Russel was only getting better. That was the second problem.

Ren's opponent was a moron. The first round had consisted of Ren setting up lethal options or restraints on him five times in five minutes. In the second round, it was only three times. In the third round, it was only once, and Russel almost slide-tackled his legs out from under him. With a minute left in the fourth round, neither had managed to accomplish much of anything. Ren had thought his previous trap would have at least let him score damage on Russel's arm — weakening him for the future four rounds that Ren worried he might lose — only for the mohawked boy to fall to the ground and roll away.

It was a genius evasion in its stupidity. Ren would have never thought to do it because falling on the ground like that would put one at their opponent's mercy. That was a near immutable rule of combat that every skilled fighter obeyed. Russel hadn't, and Ren couldn't say he'd made a mistake. With his knee raised there was no quick way to punish him for being on the ground other than bullets. He could have landed a few hits against Russel's aura with them, and he probably should have. He didn't out of pride.

Russel pressed down hard on his forward block, forcing Ren to dig his feet into the ground to avoid being pushed back. The result was a stance that was much less mobile, giving Ren no other option but to respond to Russel's attacks from the position he was in. Any potential retreat would be both exhausting and awkward due to how low and grounded he'd had to set himself.

Russel struck from the center again, the second slash being aimed even higher than the first. It was almost insulting how stupid Russel's attacks were. For all the advantage his first attack had gained him, the follow up capitalized on none of it. It allowed Ren to double down on his strong forward guard, conserving his stamina while Russel was forced to expend more of his own. It was an attack that also failed to take advantage of his immobility by sliding by Ren's guard to try and pass and get off an attack on his rear — his posture making pivoting a considerably slower ordeal.

It was the seventh such exchange in this singular bout that followed that pattern, yet Ren continued to feel like he was the one being pressed. Russel was like some infernal weed that kept springing back up no matter how many times he put him down. Ren was running out of fuel, and now the weeds threatened to overrun him.

 _Fifty seconds left._ Ren noted as Russel let off both his attacks and swung his arms in two wide arcs to drive his daggers into opposite sides of Ren's ribcage. It was an attack that far surpassed stupidity and explored the realm of immortal idiocy. The time it took to pull back his daggers, start the wide swing, and then connect the attacks was more than enough for Ren to drive the ball of his palm forward. _A temple strike may knock him out through his aura and save me the embarrassment of whatever I'd show in the fifth set._

An idiot with instinct is a terrifying thing. There was no way for Russel to avoid his strike. Even if he took to the ground again, Ren was in a position much more suited for chasing him down and punishing him. The palm strike was going to land.

So Russel took it on his forehead.

The base of the palm and the bone of the forehead are both incredibly strong, damage resistant bones. For a striking blow to damage someone's forehead, it would be easiest to attempt to concuss your opponent. It was much easier to make someone's brain rattle around inside their skull when compared to the difficulty of splitting the thickest part of the skull. Ren's strike didn't have the force required to do either, and thus…

"Point for me." Russell declared through panted breaths, his exhaustion catching up with him. It wasn't like he had vastly superior stamina to Ren, he bounced back almost as soon as you hit him down. No matter how Ren had knocked him down, he came back just as intense next round.

 _He really is like a weed._ Ren reiterated his previous thought. He didn't mean it negatively. As a matter of fact, Ren had learned something from this combat. Something that was probably Naruto's reason for pairing them off together in the first place.

If this was a spar, Ren would have won on his first lethal force. He would have won another eight times after that as well. As true as those nine victories were, so too was his defeat in this fourth round. His strength had become his weakness. By relying so heavily on skill to close out combat, there was no denying that his staying power had suffered as a result.

Ren's combat always ended quickly. Either he exploited a weakness of his opponent to end the bout, or he failed to do so and found himself quickly defeated. Pyrrha had been an enlightening person to practice with for she did not fall for the usual feigned openings that he'd offer, or make any exploitable mistakes besides. Naruto was not someone Ren had fought, yet he already knew how that would end. Using your opponent's force against them only worked if you had the ability to control and direct the power that they aimed at you. Ren had no illusions about his inability to control what his leader would bring to a duel.

"It was a good point." Ren acknowledged with a bow of his head, their timer going off. He hadn't realized it, but they'd both stood there after Russel had scored his point, too tired to act otherwise.

Russel dropped his daggers to the ground, threw his hands into the air, and then fell straight back onto the welcome grass. "Fucking finally! I'm already gonna get enough shit for letting you score nine times on me — I didn't wanna see what would happen if it ended without putting one on the board."

Ren chuckled bitterly as he sat down on the grass across from him. His strength was already failing, he needed to recuperate what he could for their next match. "I can't say I'm as happy with the result of this bout."

"You and me both," Russel agreed hotly. "Like, whoop-dee-fucking-do! I managed to beat my opponent after dying nine goddamn times. No joke man, what the fuck is wrong with your team? Are you all some superhumans that entered Beacon for shits and giggles?"

 _That describes one of our members to a T, actually._ Ren amused himself with the private joke. That was his assumption of Naruto's reason for enlisting in the academy's ranks. It obviously wasn't out of a desire to get stronger. "As far as my team is concerned, I'm easily the weakest of the bunch. Of course, I'm considerably better trained than you are. Once you develop your mastery of battle, I doubt I'll stand much of a chance."

 _Unless I force myself to improve._ A course that Ren felt he was already sprinting down. His mastery of the aura-fist had not produced spectacular results — often only resulting in small increases in the destructive power of his blows — yet it was clear that he was beginning to grasp the fundamentals of it more clearly with each hour spent. His attendance at Naruto's training was a step taken towards conquering his poor stamina. Despite what he'd said, Ren had no intention of staying the same.

"Any hints on that, bro? I felt like I was attacking into a black hole the entire time I was fighting you — everything I threw at you just disappeared or got turned around on me. Made me feel like a total moron."

Ren laughed. It was another full blown laugh that not even his team had managed to make him give out. How could he not? Russel made him feel inadequate, and he invoked the same reaction in Russel. _The grass is always greener._

"If I were to offer a suggestion, it would be that you focus on the effects your attacks have on your opponent. You were able to consistently press me with attacks, but without any direction, the only thing you accomplished was wearing yourself out." Ren decided to leave out the part that he himself had been more exhausted than Russel even with that. Stamina conservation was an important skill for the CRDL member to learn.

"You'll have to show me sometime. Can't say I get all that fancy shit."

"I can't say that I understand your stamina either," Ren adopted Russel's phrasing. "I thought we were close in physicality. I'm sure I hit my limit in that last round while you were jumping around. I'm impressed with your ability to recover your stamina."

This time it was Russel who laughed bitterly. He thrust his hand into his pocket and fished out his scroll, flinging it spiraling through the air to Ren. When it arced back down into Ren's hand, he found the aura gauge app open on its front, displaying Russel's depleted aura. "What?"

"Yeah, been running on empty since about round two. Pushed myself a little too hard in the run — gotten really sick of coming in last recently. Was hoping you'd be a bit more of a pansy-ass and drop out as early as you did last time. Turns out you fight better and have more stamina. You Nevermore bastards are all monsters."

'W-wait…" Ren stammered. He had a much better grasp of aura than any other beacon student (barring Naruto), so he had a good deal of confidence in knowing how much aura he'd been forced to use. Checking his scroll, Ren verified his suspicion; five percent of his aura remained. It was low enough that Professor Goodwitch would have forbidden him from sparring if he went up to the stage. Even if that was the case, there was a substantial difference between low aura and completely empty. If Ren had connected an attack on Russel, there would have been no aura to protect him.

"Figured you weren't fighting on zero. I can tell that's something you suck at," Russel smirked, happy to get one up on him. "You're one of those smart dudes. Part of the reason why you kicked my ass so hard in the first half of this. I'd put fifty lien down saying it's gonna be why I start returning the favor next round."

 _Because I'm exhausted._ Ren's immediate response pushed itself to the forefront of his thoughts. That obviously wasn't it, not entirely. "How is being intelligent having an impact on my operation time? It's a matter of physicality."

"See! That's the kinda useless intellectual crap that don't mean shit. When you hit your limits, you've known exactly where they were ten miles out. You're thinking about it so much that by the time you start getting close you've already packed up shop and called it a day. If my arms stopped working, I'd kick ya. If my legs stopped working after that, I'd bite ya. Trained with your taskmaster enough to know that giving up because you think you ain't got no more to give is the thing that really bites you in the ass."

The thought of someone armed with nothing but their teeth fighting an armed huntsman was a joke so bad it failed to be laughable. When your combat efficiency dropped below a certain point it was time to pull back, recuperate, and fight when you're capable of doing so. That was precisely what fighting five minutes and then breaking ten minutes simulated, an ebb and flow style of combat stressing the importance of conservation. Ren was the better fighter, the smarter fighter, as well as having a larger aura pool. So why was he beginning to be pushed back?

"Damn… I suck ass at explaining things," Russel tugged at his mohawk. Ren had noticed it was something of a nervous tick of his. "It's something like you're so smart that you find a way around your walls so often that you've stopped trying to break through em."

Russel wasn't clever or cunning. He wasn't strong nor was he even all that fast. Ren had him slotted as a thuggish filler to Beacon's roster that would forever be condemned to low-rank missions. It was no great secret that huntsmen were in high demand, even if they were mediocre. You wouldn't need to send a team like Nevermore to go and clean up a few beowolves threatening a border town. He'd rationalized that Ozpin had invited the CRDL members to Beacon to fill such a niche.

Spending time talking with him — an act Ren was confident wouldn't happen shortly after judging him as a pointless bully — reminded him that although an idiot can learn from a wise man, a wise man could learn even more from an idiot. Dismissing someone before having gotten to know them proved that if anyone here was lacking, it was himself.

"By being too stupid to observe your own limits, you limit your mind's ability to influence your body's capacity."

The only thing Russel was missing to complete the look of penultimate annoyance was a drawn on frustration mark pulsating on his forehead. "Too stupid?"

"That's not what I meant," Ren quickly assured him. "I was simply stating that your aversion to thinking allows you to push yourself as your body doesn't realize its exhaustion."

Ren's words did nothing to assuage the growing fire of Russel's rage. If anything, it fanned the flames. He did a kick up off the ground and spun his daggers once in his hands before readying for combat. "Alright, you smartass. Let's go for round five and see how lucky you are to have so much traffic in the upstairs."

Ren balked. "I didn't mean any offense. And we still have five minutes before our next set!"

"Oh do we?" Russel brought his hand to his agape mouth in shock. "I suppose I must be a bit too stupid to tell time. Sucks to be you."

That was all the warning Ren received before Russel dove straight towards him with all the intensity of a goaded bull. He'd learned much from the short conversation with Russel. It may do him so good to act a little more thoughtlessly from time to time. If he tracked and respected his own limitations to such a fine degree, it was likely he'd never believed himself capable of surpassing them.

At present time, it didn't feel like that was the most important lesson. As Ren was forced into a back handspring to build space his body slapped him with the groaning of muscles and the expected creaking of bones. If there was a lesson Ren was committing to memory, it was this: Beware accidentally goading your opponent. It was tantamount to refilling the energy gauge of some.

 _And it appears Russel belongs to that some. Damnit!_

* * *

Ruby had followed Naruto for a leisurely walk around the track. The groups had distributed themselves to make use of the wide space they had. Cardin and Pyrrha had taken center stage by occupying the grasses center of the track. With the ovular path they were taking, it was the fight that was always visible with a glance to the side.

"What do you think about Dove and Nora?" Naruto asked for the fifth time. Ruby hadn't been absentmindedly ignoring him the first four times. This was part of Naruto's leadership training.

"He's even weaker than last round. Nora's only beating him up at this point."

"Can't say that you're wrong," Naruto chuckled as Nora bludgeoned the swordsman in the gut, sending him somersaulting backwards. Dove clutched his stomach as he hit the ground, the wind visibly knocked out of him. "Alright, what about Pyrrha and Cardin?"

"Shouldn't we stop them?" Ruby asked, halting her footsteps, unwilling to move on from Dove who was in evident agony. "This isn't even a fight anymore."

"It wasn't much of a fight when Dove was handing Nora her own ass in the first two rounds either. It's his own damn fault for not managing his condition better."

"But this isn't making him any stronger! You said last round that he knew his stamina was a problem. What's the point of this?"

"Just because you know something doesn't mean you're going to do anything about it," Naruto hadn't stopped moving the entire time, thus Ruby was forced to catch up to him. "Not like your leadership has changed much since the beginning of the year. Suddenly, you up and decide you have to do something about it yesterday?"

Naruto eyed her knowingly, causing a light blush to darken her cheeks. Stick quickly gave way to carrot as he petted her head with a smile. "Everyone has their gaps, even myself. Part of your job is making sure your team deals with their own. Dove's low energy has been a problem for him for years and he knows it. If it takes Nora knocking the contents of his stomach onto the grass for a couple hours to get him to take it seriously, I need to make sure that's what he gets. It's better than the alternative."

"Shouldn't that be Cardin's job?" Ruby asked, the man himself batting away Pyrrha's makeshift iron shield as it was thrown at him.

"Cardinal sucks so bad that they need an equalizer. If I don't give them a staging platform to build themselves on, they'll never make it," Naruto chuckled as he waved his hand in a circle around him. Cardin and Dove were both losing definitively, while Russel was going even with Ren. Ruby was impressed to see the dagger wielder holding his own against one of Naruto's team. She was extra impressed because he'd been losing the hardest in the beginning.

Still, Ruby wasn't satisfied with that answer. Evidently, Naruto caught onto that. "I get where you're coming from. I'm doing this for Cardin and his gang — not like I want another team to babysit. Cardin decided that he didn't know what to do with his team, so he trusted his group and himself to me. I'll get em into fighting shape, then kick em out of the nest and hope they make it. You're right about it being Cardin's team; If I walk them through every step, they'll fail when they have to make it on their own. I'm trying to be careful about making sure they don't see me as their leader."

"You might wanna try a bit harder," Ruby watched as it was Naruto's turn to flush.

"Nothing I can do about how untrained everyone who comes to Beacon is. RDL trust Cardin, I can tell. When they do start working on their teamwork I don't think they'll have any problems. What about RWBY?"

The question caused Ruby's modest chest to puff up in pride. "No problems there! All of us get along great! We've been working on combination attacks and getting to know how everyone fights for weeks."

"Glad to hear it. I didn't think you'd have any problems like that," Ruby smiled a bit goofily. It wasn't often Naruto offered anyone praise. "Plus, if I had to worry about training your team I think I'd ask Oz for a salary."

"Nope! No chance! You can't have my team!" Ruby stuck her tongue out and pulled down her eyelid.

Naruto snickered. "You couldn't pay me to swap with you. Three women that willful? I couldn't do it."

"Yeah right," Ruby scoffed. "Like there's a team you couldn't lead. You're basically Beacon's super student."

"Most of it is experience," Naruto shrugged. "You're all fresh meat while I've been around the block once or twice. I'm not joking though, I couldn't handle your team. Hell, I couldn't even handle Blake by herself," Naruto's cheery expression dipped at the mention of RWBY's cat ninja. "How is Blake?"

"Quiet, aloof, like a cat? Pretty much normal for her." Blake had definitely warmed up to their team after she and Weiss worked things out. She preferred quietly reading her books to spending time with her team unless one of them dragged her along for the ride. Ruby tried not to let that get to her, rationalizing it was probably part of who Blake was.

"Not the answer I was hoping to hear," Naruto confessed. "Keep an eye on her. I'm worried she's going to be getting the urge to try and get herself killed again."

Ruby would have defended her teammate ninety-nine times out of a hundred. It so happened that this time was the one in which she would not. She was distracted by a realization rampaging through her head. Naruto's words were the key to a lock that now seemed so obvious she wasn't sure why she needed them in the first place. The newspapers? Constantly checking news websites? Blake was looking for a story on something.

"I think Blake is looking into the White Fang," Ruby's thoughts slipped from her lips without her even realizing it.

Naruto sighed. "Can't say it'd surprise me if she was. She freaked out hard enough when they got involved to jump straight into the middle of thirty of them. I don't think she's normally stupid enough to do that, which means they matter enough to make her do something that crazy."

That was a no-brainer. Blake had told them she used to be a part of the White Fang until recently. She only stopped being a member because of how violent and xenophobic they were becoming. People didn't treat faunus any differently back in Patch. Ruby didn't even know it was a thing to be mean to faunus for being faunus. To her, they'd always been people with ears, tails, or whatever cool animal part they had.

Beacon had given her a firsthand initiation to the racism surrounding the faunus thanks to CRDL. Seeing them torment Velvet for the sole reason that she had rabbit ears… it was heartbreaking. It wasn't the easiest to let that kind of thing go, and Ruby considered herself darn forgiving. From what Blake had told her, CRDL's form of cruelty was on the more innocent side of what faunus had to put up with on a daily basis. It's why Blake still hid her ears underneath her bow even now.

It made Ruby sick.

Ruby knew Blake cared about the White Fang. Enough to do something that might get her hurt. Enough to do something that might get Naruto involved. One of those was more than enough to make Ruby nervous, but both? Nope! She felt no shame in playing the cute little sister and asking for help when the stakes were this high.

"I have no idea what to do about it," Ruby's voice was carefully controlled to be meek enough to stoke Naruto's protective instincts while cautiously avoiding entering a tone that could be construed as whiny. It was an art that her dad had unknowingly helped her master over the years. "If we try and do something about the White Fang… it's dangerous."

The risk wasn't something that would have weighed as heavily on Ruby's mind a month ago. Huntresses took risks. Being a hero and protecting the world meant a certain amount of danger. Seeing her friend's blood dripping steadily down onto the concrete — a reminder of what happens when a huntress gets careless — had impacted her more than she knew. The only thing Ruby realized was that she wanted to prevent anyone on her team from getting hurt whenever possible.

"I've got some more advice from the man who was hellbent on making me into a leader; if you have questions you don't know how to answer, focus on ones that you can. You may find you never needed an answer to your original question in the first place." Naruto preached, stroking his imaginary beard pretentiously.

Ruby didn't know what the heck that meant. She was tempted to ask, knowing Naruto would give her an answer. She didn't. She wanted to be a leader who could solve RWBY's problem on her own when she needed to. Going to Naruto for all the answers wouldn't help her down the road the same as she'd thought with CRDL.

 _What questions can I answer?_ Ruby wondered. There were a bazillion questions she _could_ answer, but none of them seemed important at the time. _Maybe I should look at the question I asked myself?_ That sounded like a good idea.

" _How do I deal with this?"_ Was the first question that jumped into her mind when she figured out what Blake was doing all of two minutes ago. It was a daunting, open-ended question that would turn out disastrously if she answered it wrong. They'd always said in math class that if a problem looked too big to solve you should break it down into smaller parts. She knew that messing this up and answering wrong could end disastrously, but what of the pieces?

 _Can we fight the White Fang?_ Was Ruby's first question. If she didn't think they could fight the members of the organization, then there wasn't much hope in doing anything about them. _We probably can._ Naruto had said that there was a short girl who was pretty strong working with the White Fang, that was concerning. Torchwick was another problem. As far the White Fang themselves went? He'd mentioned the Fang themselves had been easy to fight, although many were armed with guns.

It was a dagger through Ruby's heart realizing how little that added to her perception of their threat. She tucked that existential crisis away for another time. Knowing she trusted her team to fight the White Fang was a good start that put her heart a tiny bit more at ease. That didn't mean there wasn't risk involved. A non-zero chance of something happening to her team was still a chance. Ruby wasn't sure she wanted to risk that.

 _Could I get Blake to stop?_ Was her next question. Midway through asking it, she understood what Naruto had said about some questions invalidating other questions. Naruto hadn't been able to make Blake stop at the docks. More than that, Ruby didn't think Blake would give up no matter what she said. Understanding that Blake wouldn't stop no matter what she did lead to a much simpler question.

 _Should I leave her to do this alone?_ The answer was an immediate rejection of the idea from every part of her soul. Abandoning Blake was not an option. If Blake was going to get involved with the White Fang, RWY was joining their B.

"I've got to help her." Ruby's thoughts escaped from her lips without her consent. Her hands jumped up to her mouth, covering it wholly to prevent any further leakage of her thoughts. Naruto was helping her, but that didn't mean he'd help her with something like this. When Blake had tried to go against the White Fang on her own…

Naruto grinned empathetically. "You don't have much of a choice. Tell her to heel like a dog and she'll run off on her own like the cat she is."

"You're not upset?" Ruby's overwhelming disbelief almost made her blink. She only restrained herself out of fear this was a dream that closing her eyes would awake her from.

"Why would I be upset?" Naruto asked, genuinely baffled.

"What? They're terrorists and we're students! You always try and avoid taking risks!"

Naruto laughed. "If there is one person on Remnant who does not have the right to lecture huntsmen in training about coloring within the lines, it's me. Besides," Naruto shrugged off Ruby's aghast shock. "I don't hate risk. I'll try and minimize the chance of anyone getting hurt, obviously, but you don't get to choose to be a protector as your occupation without preparing for the worst to happen. The risk is a part of the job."

Ruby thought that Naruto read her mind. "There's a difference between calculated risk and jumping into thirty hostiles — two of whom are stronger than you — without an exit strategy or any real means to fight them off. Blake took a reckless risk in spite of the danger it would put her comrades in. You're taking a calculated risk to minimize the chance of a fatal outcome. You want to keep Blake safe while she just wanted to satisfy her own ego."

It was easy to put ideas that you didn't like the sound of inside a box. Ruby had seen Naruto hurt himself to teach Blake a lesson. She'd watched him attack Nora in class for a decision that would have gotten people killed. Whenever he got serious about something, people ended up getting hurt, either physically or emotionally. When CRDL, RWBY, and NVR had met up to talk about what happened after the docks there were some who said they didn't mind the way he taught them.

It hadn't made any sense to Ruby. People could understand each other through talking, discussing, being honest with one another. Ruby had been quick to call the way he did things 'broken' and in need of being 'fixed'. She still believed that, even now. Naruto's methods were needlessly extreme, actions Ruby would never do herself.

There was a shift in her perspective that day. She would never condone what he did to himself, to Blake, to her team… but she understood it now. To Naruto, a leader was someone who minimized the dangers people would face whenever possible. Dove being destroyed by Nora was that belief put into harsh practice. It was an 'ends justify the means' style of training that Ruby didn't think she agreed with.

But now she understood it.

"Thanks." Ruby was too caught up in her own thoughts to muster much more of a response. She had a lot of thinking to do. So engrossed in beginning the process of planning what she'd do next with Blake that she missed Naruto's response.

"No problem. That's why I'm here."

* * *

The results of the morning training were not pretty. Cardin was carrying Sky on his back, Dove's back was hunched forward as he grasped his stomach, and Russel and Ren both looked like they'd run cross-country for the day. Pyrrha and Nora showed signs of the long session but wore it with grace when compared to the others.

"Good job today," Naruto praised the group that had assembled before the bleachers. "We have showers to take, class to get to, and everything else, so I'll keep closing short."

"Pyrrha's control of her semblance is unrefined. You're decent at manipulating a few things precisely or multiple items forcefully, yet you lack the fine control necessary to make full use of the iron dust. If you thought that you were so strong that you'd alienate people if you improved, you were wrong. You're too weak. Become stronger."

Hearing somebody call Pyrrha Nikos weak was a bad joke. She was the second strongest in their year with a bullet. For reasons she didn't comprehend, Ruby could tell that Pyrrha's gratitude towards Naruto for speaking those words was more than she could describe.

"Your shield work looked a lot better at the end, Cardin. Work with Pyrrha when she has the time to keep stepping things up with it. We're waiting on you and Sky to get into fighting shape before moving on to team coordinated fighting." Cardin's only response was a nod as he accepted what Naruto said without argument.

"I'm skipping Russel and Ren. I can tell you both figured out what I wanted you to figure out. Fix your weaknesses and consider training together outside of sessions. I have a feeling you'll help each other get stronger."

"Nora, you flattened Dove into a pancake, but only after he'd have killed or injured you ten times over. Learn to deal with skilfull opponents or you'll have problems in the field. Ren's your partner, practice with him if you need to. I'm skipping Dove, he gets what I meant to say." Nora kicked the ground while Dove possibly nodded his head. With how hunched his posture was it was hard for Ruby to tell if he did or not.

"Good job Sky. Your muscles are coming in nicely and you're getting used to pain. Keep on tackling things like you are and you'll be able to deal with any fear you might have in the heat of the moment. We'll be moving on to weapons training for you soon enough. I want a little more strength in your arms before we tackle that. Try and get a few hundred practice swings in today when your aura recovers. That's all for today. Good job everyone." Naruto congratulated them.

Whatever the standard procedure was for post-training, Ruby could tell it didn't apply here. With the need of three or four showers with only an hour before class… everyone remained grouped up only because of the mutual goal of making it back to their dorms immediately. Of course, you couldn't gather this many teenagers together and expect them to travel in silence.

"You're Pretty-Boy's partner, right?" Russel asked Nora. Ruby had never really noticed that Ren actually was pretty. His facial features might have been even softer than her own. Ruby wasn't sure how she felt about that.

Nora recognized who the nickname belonged to without a second thought. "Of course! Renny and I have been partners forever! Ever since we were little kids!"

"Then you're the right person to ask," Russel's smirk took a cutting edge. "Pretty-Boy is way too girly — hardly acts like a man at all. You ever catch him dressing up like a girl? It would explain a few things..."

"I take any begrudging respect you'd earned from me back," Ren grumbled as he rubbed a bruise on the side of his head.

"Psssssh! Renny would never dress up like a girl, he's a guy! Why would anyone… think of… dressing…" Nora's voice slowly tapered off into nothingness, her eyes widening as her pupils dilated. Her neck robotically adjusted itself to turn towards Ren. Ruby thought she saw rose tinted hearts in her eyes. "Like that… oh, my…"

"Nora…?" Ren's tone was equal parts warning and terror. A clear message that Nora's thoughts should not continue going down the path they were headed.

"Hey Renny, we should go shopping this weekend."

Ren released his held breath in a torrent of relief. "I'd be happy to. I intended to go and buy some new training clothes this week anyways. You're welcome to join me."

"Yeah… and then we could pick up some dresses for the dance."

Ren chuckled. "I could help you with that, though I don't know how useful I'll be," When Ren stopped speaking it gave his brain time to catch up with an important detail of what Nora had said. "Why would you need two dresses for the dance?"

"I don't."

Russel cackled as Ren's face drained so fast it would put a freshly bleached sheet to shame. Ignoring his teammates growing distress, Naruto latched onto a point of interest. "We have a school dance?"

"Next week," Cardin answered. "No idea if it's themed or not, but they've picked out the date."

"Yang and Weiss are setting it up!" Ruby beamed. "They wanted to do something fun for all of the students at the academy since we don't have much time to get out and stuff."

"What?" Naruto's deadpan was lessened by the spark of ridicule that crept into his voice. "I put you lot through a little training and more than half of you drop half-dead. Is this a school for huntsmen or a high school?"

"If you look to the less hardworking of the school it does seem pointless. However, I am grateful for the excuse to make my partner take a day off. He is the perfect example of one who could use a night such as that." Dove politely disagreed.

"I'm fine. I'd rather spend that night training." Sky responded, his voice slightly frosted.

Naruto relented and waved Sky's refutation off. "Dove is right. If there's anyone who deserves a day off, it's you. The menus I've given you were designed to overtrain. Your muscles should be overworked, which explains why your gains are a little lower than Russel's."

"What the hell's the point in that?" Russel heard his name and entered the conversation. "You telling me that you're intentionally working him so hard that he's not buffing out?"

"Leave it, Russ. I know why he's doing it." Sky placated his teammate. Ruby didn't know much about Sky Lark. Of all the CRDL members he was easily the quietest. Whenever she saw him he was always working. Sometimes it was classwork, but mostly he occupied his time with weight training.

He was smart enough to tutor Naruto in history. That wasn't exactly an accomplishment itself given the blond's comical shortcomings in the subject, but the one time Ruby had seen him helping Naruto in the library it'd felt like Sky was teaching him well. His team liked him and they got along, that was good. His fighting in Professor Goodwitch's class… not so much. He was the weakest member of CRDL, and Ruby didn't feel the need to preface that with a 'probably'.

Russel reluctantly backed off as Sky requested. Naruto took the opportunity to restate his question. "We have a dance? Are we supposed to get something to wear? Is attendance mandatory?"

"Do you not want to go?" Pyrrha was the first one to respond.

"Can't say I know how you guys dance around here. The few dances I did learn were for ceremonies and events. I wouldn't have any idea what to do if I went."

"Great! We can finally see you suck at something," Cardin jeered. "All the more reason for you to come."

"I might not know how to dance, but I can't be worse at it than you are with your shield," Naruto retorted.

Ruby stepped in before Cardin's response could derail the conversation further. "Yang and Weiss are debating whether it should be themed, formal, or normal. They promised they'd put it to rest today so they could put up flyers around Beacon tonight. I'll send you a message once they decide."

"Still haven't said I'm going." Naruto reminded her.

Nora was having none of that. "We're all going! Ren's even going to wear a dress-"

"I'm not."

"So you have to lead us there! You're our leader!"

"Dances are outside my specialization. Find a leader who better fits the parameters of your intended mission." Naruto refused.

"Nope!" Pyrrha's popped P made Ruby wondered if her household mannerism was catching on. "You're the only leader for Nevermore. If you aren't good enough to lead us to a dance, I'll have to make you better."

"Cheeky brat." Naruto bumped his hip into his partner's, sending her sideways as she avoided tripping over her own feet. Pyrrha attempted to retaliate. Ruby used the word 'attempted' to describe it because she would have been better off hip bumping a stone pillar for all it accomplished. Pyrrha bounces off him, almost tripping when she landed on the ground as Naruto continued onward, deliberately ignoring his partner.

"Yang wanted me to invite you. Can you really not come?" Ruby used the Little Sister Beam combined with puppy dog eyes to convince Naruto. It was a dangerous combination attack that could only be used sparingly. Overuse forced your target to quickly develop a resistance like Yang had. For those who had not developed such defenses?

"Kami, fine. Let me know what I need and I'll be there." It was positively lethal.

Ruby did her best to keep her face modest and grateful. If a person hit with the Little Sister Beam realized they'd been had there would be no hope of convincing them again. From there the conversations broke down into smaller and more segmented sections. CRDL pairing off amongst themselves, Nora and Ren arguing about dresses, and Naruto and Pyrrha walking quietly. For once, Ruby found herself grateful for not being pulled into any of the talks. She had plenty to think about and not much time to do it.

When they reached their dorm floor, CRDL split off from the rest of them to make it to their room. Although they all lived on the same floor as one another, the boys' team was located in a different hallway. When it came time for Ruby to return to her own dorm they all said their momentary farewells. The one event that didn't go to script was Naruto saying he'd meet his team in the classroom.

"I'll catch up with you all in Oobleck's class. I got a few things that need doing."

"Okey-dokey!" Nora saluted him and quickly tore through their room to reach the shower first.

Pyrrha was more concerned. "Did you need help with anything? If it's the homework then I can give you a hand before class starts."

"Finished it last week. Decided to get it done early because I had a feeling that I'd have a busy weekend. Nothing I need help with, just some stuff to get done. I'll meet you in Oobleck's!" Naruto considered the conversation closed as he turned and walked away, fingers laced behind his head, cradling it as he walked.

Ruby should have already been in her room at this point. She only stayed in the hallway because she was caught in the momentum of the abrupt conversation. Now she was staying because it looked like her friend needed her. "You okay, Pyrrha?"

"What?" Pyrrha asked, every ounce of her attention focused on the back of her partner. "Oh, I'm fine Ruby. I'm…" Pyrrha paused, frozen as she tried to find the words she'd say next. She decided to go with the truth as opposed to a lie. "I'm not happy."

"What's up?" Ruby asked. Pyrrha was nice and polite, not to mention how strong she was. They didn't get around to talking to each other much, but Ruby considered her a friend anyway. If something was bothering her, she wanted to be there to help.

"It's nothing," Pyrrha could have entered a competition for least convincing denial with the way she said it.

"I don't consider my friends not being happy nothing," Ruby asserted. "I don't know if there's anything I can do, but if you want to talk to somebody…"

"Friends?" Pyrrha asked in surprise. Ruby immediately felt nervous.

"I mean- I know we don't talk that much or anything, but you're really nice and a super strong huntress and you're really friendly but I mean that's the same thing as being nice except not really and-"

Ruby's rambling was cut off by Pyrrha's giggling. _Kill me now._ Ruby longed for the sweet release of death. That was the most embarrassing thing she'd done at Beacon — no contest. "I didn't know you thought we were friends. I thought you just considered me the partner of your friend."

"No!" Ruby rejected the idea instantaneously. "I always hoped you were my friend, but I guess I never asked about it because it's kinda embarrassing to ask someone if they're your friend, you know? Like, what if you said no? Every time I thought about it I freaked out and-"

"We're friends," Pyrrha cut her off mercifully. Ruby had been spiraling out of control from the intensity of her humiliating embarrassment. The spartan stopping her was the highest form of mercy.

"Oh… awesome!"

The tension of Ruby's nervousness released itself in the form of laughter. Pyrrha smiled and joined in with her — two socially awkward girls for very different reasons finding common ground in their awkwardness. It was so cliche you could have written a story about it.

"If you're willing," Pyrrha started, the giggles they'd shared having not yet subsided. "Maybe I could use a friend to vent to."

 _This is it — girl talk! The magical realm reserved only for the closest of friends!_ "Sure!" _Aaaaaaaaahhhh! That was such a lame response!_

Pyrrha didn't mind. She started talking to Ruby right outside both their dorms like it was only the two of them. Which, for all they knew, it was. "I think Naruto is going to meet Cinder. I really don't like-"

Ruby would spend the next hour before class listening to things about that situation that Pyrrha really didn't like. Her first experience with girl talk was a turbulent one.

* * *

Three raps at the door. Their door had never been knocked on while they were there, nor had a code been established to signal who was at the door. Cinder knew who it was regardless of those details. "Come in."

Naruto entered through the door, bowing his head slightly as he did so. "Ojamashimasu," He grinned. "Probably a little more literal than normal in this case." Cinder could hear his amusement at his own joke.

His arrogance annoyed her. "I didn't think you'd work things out with your team so quickly. Are they already prepared to allow me into your little gang?"

"No," Naruto scowled at her. Funny how his frustration filled her with such joy. "It was hard enough to get them to drop the topic. Fixing it is going to be a hell of a task."

"Such a tragedy."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you're real torn up about it." Naruto snarked.

"The disparity between what I did to your plans and what you did to mine are not comparable. You should consider yourself lucky that I satisfied myself to such a petty-" Cinder licked her lips. "And enjoyable revenge."

Crimson rushed to Uzumaki's cheeks at her words. Cinder found his weakness with women amusing. He was not a lecher who found himself unable to control his lust. He was more a boy who knew not how to handle a woman and her feminine advances. She enjoyed substantially less that he'd chosen to volunteer the information of his own accord. She didn't enjoy the superiority the action implied — as if he was beyond her ability to harm.

"You'll have to let me know when you've patched things up with them so I can join in your fun little adventures. You have my full cooperation — at least, until the festival."

Naruto smirked. "Unfortunately for you, I got some pretty good advice today. So your stalling play is being cut short."

"Oh? And how will you manage that?" Cinder simpered. There was no real point to all of this, and that was the point itself. Naruto Uzumaki was the single greatest threat to Cinder's plans. A full access pass to observe him at her leisure? She'd had to restrain herself from attending the morning session Mercury had told her Uzumaki was holding.

She wanted to gather information on him. Uzumaki's attempt at reforming her was an opportunity to do exactly that. That single kiss succeeded in alienating her from a large enough portion of his team that it would explain any and all failures to bond with them. From there, Uzumaki would have less opportunity to pair her off with any of his teammates, furthering the time she would have to gather information on him without dealing with any distractions.

Cinder had given up a bit of time with Uzumaki to ruin his momentum and obfuscate her motives. It was similar to sacrificing a piece to weaken your opponent's pawn structure. Human beings are contrary and stubborn creatures. If Uzumaki thought she wanted him far away, it was simply another reason for him to bring her close. By not knowing what type of game Cinder wanted to play, it was likely he'd ignorantly make moves beneficial to her own cause and possibly even detrimental to his own.

"You broke it, you can fix it," Naruto shrugged. "I said you had to get along with everyone to get this silly little power back. If you want to play chicken, be my guest. Not going to make me waste time on questions I can't find answers to."

 _Oh well._ Cinder thought to herself. It appeared that she would be forced to interact with his team in order to play the game. It wasn't the outcome she'd hoped for, but it was no worse than what would have happened if she hadn't made a play. At worst, she'd lost a few hours for the potential of a great gain. She was not so daft as to believe that a move was poor because it hadn't gone as she'd wished. An eighty percent chance to win big with a twenty percent chance to lose nothing was more than worth a few hours of her time, even if she rolled the one in five.

His choice was the one somebody who understood her intentions would take. It was also the choice a moron would arrive at. She was inclined to believe the prior. "Annoying," Cinder spoke icily. It benefited her for Naruto to believe this was a setback, after all. "I'll repair the damage as soon as I'm given the opportunity. Will that satisfy you?"

"Good enough for me." Naruto flashed her a grin. It annoyed her. For all the planning and effort she'd put into this event, he'd come in and destabilized it in a single night. Now he stood before her, oblivious to the effort she was putting into controlling his decisions. She couldn't make heads or tails when she questioned if he was an idiot or a genius. She hoped it was the latter, if only for her dignity's sake.

"Anything else?"

"Nope, that's it," Naruto said, turning his vulnerable back towards her and putting his foot out the door. He'd never closed the door behind him, meaning it was obvious this was meant to be a short conversation. A status update of sorts. "See you in class, Cinder."

With that as the farewell, he closed the door behind him. Cinder bit her thumb, the mounting ire she felt being taken out inelegantly on her digit. It was an action she only afforded herself when she knew she had her privacy.

She didn't like the casual way he addressed her. She didn't like his smugness, flaunting his supposed superiority over her. Even though he'd given her the perfect cover to investigate him, she didn't like that it had been given to her. Most of all? She detested how he viewed himself as invulnerable.

The man fancied himself a god, and she would make him bleed.

* * *

 ** _For those who wish to support me, feel free to go to_** ** _p a treon . com (slash) Faulkner to do so. See you guys next time!_**


	31. Growing Older

_**Greetings and salutations! A lot of things to hit today so we shan't be mincing words.**_

 _ **F &C is a bit behind because I have more things occupying my time now than before. I should have a chapter coming out this week for that for those who are interested. Speaking of time, I have less of it. I prefaced this a while ago but my releases will be slower for some time as I work on some real life stuff. For now, bi-monthly will be the slowest this story gets updated. I may do weekly updates at times, it depends on how the chapter flows. Hasn't been anything too exciting the past two chapters so I can't say I expected my Pa+reon to grow at all and it hasn't. Only time it did was during the April Fools push, go figure. Like said, don't blame anybody and don't mind much either way. Just means releases are slowing down as my time gets more stretched. Hopefully they'll return to normal soon. I'll keep you posted.**_

 _ **This chapter is a return to Naruto. We haven't delved very deep into his psyche the past few chapters, opting instead to focus on Ruby and various others. Readers have short memories, so they forget why Naruto is acting quite different than he was in the beginning of the story. We'll get to touch on the ways Naruto thinks here, and I like that. Hope you like it rough because we're going long and dry this chapter.**_

 _ **Stardew Valley multiplayer is coming out soon. Not relevant, but the world must know.**_

 _ **Edit: I'm aware the chapter is slow and doesn't progress the main plot forward. I also knew when I released this chapter that it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea. The story actually has very arcs in it and I feel the characters need to stand on their own to a certain degree by each point. Dance arcMission ArcFestival ArcFall ArcX ArcY Arc and then we're done folks. I get this chapter can seem a bit meandering, but I find it essential to tell Naruto's story now because I'm going to start pushing his character in the next few chapters. I shouldn't care, but reading "this seems OOC" is something I try and take to heart (assuming I view it as valid. That's hit or miss). Naruto's gonna be juggling the chainsaws of Emerald, Mercury, and Cinder with the Beacon students right in position to take the hit if he drops them. I think this chapter reiterates how his doing of that is within character, at least that's my opinion. Appreciate the comments about it seeming meandering, I get why you feel that way. Being one of the two people who actually knows where this story is going I can say the story needs Naruto's mind to be fleshed out at this exact instant. That's all for now**_

 _ **Cover Art by: Moonlight**_

* * *

 **Chapter 29**

 **Growing Older**

Some people liked to be busy. The idea of constantly bouncing from work to play to leisure to sleep and then back to work was the type of fulfillment they found most gratifying. By constantly keeping their life abuzz with activity they managed to stay entertained and engaged with their life and the world around them. For the past few weeks, Naruto had been forced into that style of life. Having sampled it thoroughly, Naruto couldn't say he found it to his taste.

There was something about the quiet that appealed to him in his old age far more than it had in his youth. Conversations with Kurama or Gyūki could take weeks to conclude — hours of silence between each spoken thought. That wasn't to say an average conversation went that way, only that lengthy periods of noiselessness had become something of a standard. He'd originally blamed the constant noise for his devastating headaches when he arrived at Beacon, but it had been weeks since they had disappeared and his life had only gotten noisier.

Naruto didn't understand why the pain had left him, nor did he intend to question it. A padded jacket was an acceptable gift, even in summer. Failing to understand the timing of its appearance and disappearance did not diminish his gratitude that it was gone. Pain or no, Naruto needed some quiet time to decompress. The opportunity for that snuck up on him, though not in the way he would have liked.

It was October tenth, birthday. He turned sixty-eight today. Naruto didn't attach much significance to his own birthday, never had either. Wasn't much to celebrate growing up as a kid, even less in the way of people to celebrate it with. He made friends when he became a shinobi, it just wasn't something that changes years of experience not celebrating. His idea of a good birthday was Ichiraku Ramen with Iruka-sensei. He couldn't see Iruka-sensei, so he'd have to make due with the ramen.

After some pretty incessant begging, he'd convinced Ayame to take him on as an apprentice a decade ago. Since he'd always be around, there would always be people tasting Ichiraku Ramen. Teuchi's and Ayame's flavors would live on as long as he did. It was the least he could do for the two who supported him so much throughout his life.

He'd started his broth last evening. A mellow mixture of chicken back and miso. He hadn't known that broth took a day to prepare, sometimes even more. The dorm floor only having a single kitchenette between twelve teams should have meant that he wouldn't have time for such a long, slow cooking process. Naruto wasn't sure whether he was surprised or not that not a single huntsman or huntress cooked their own meals, leaving the kitchenette vacant to the point it was gathering dust. Its lack of use was enough to convince Naruto that monopolizing it for a day wouldn't ruffle any feathers of the fellow students.

Although Naruto had a favorite type of ramen, he always tried to vary what he made nowadays. Forgetting even once recipe was completely unacceptable now. There was no Ayame to ask what he messed up if he got it wrong in this world. Keeping all his techniques from rusting was a large part of what ramen he decided to make on any given day. One such lesson from Ayame had him nothing less than paranoid about the temperature of the broth.

" _Bring your broth to a light simmer. The broth is the blood of your ramen; if you fail it, your ramen will fail you. Never, and I mean_ _ **never**_ _mix up a simmer and a boil."_ Naruto had proceeded to try and cook at his apartment, messing up exactly that. After an hour of waiting for the water to come to a simmer, he decided to raise the temperature by two settings and make it a step above medium-low. The water finally started simmering, leading Naruto to drop the ten pounds of chicken bones into the mixture.

Believing he'd done what he needed to, Naruto left the pot unattended. What he hadn't understood was that the water was only simmering at the moment he looked at it. Over the course of the next hour, the simmer escalated to something just short of a boil. The chicken bones burned at the bottom of the pot and his whole house smelled like burnt fat for the rest of the day. It had cost him eight meals worth of money just to gather all the ingredients to attempt it! Naruto vowed never again to be so wasteful with his food.

Ayame made sure he kept that vow.

After his eighth check over the course of three hours to guarantee that his stock was still simmering, then adding a touch more miso, he went to deal with his last errand of the morning. He probably… definitely should have dealt with it before anything else. Normally one to deal with the most difficult of challenges first, Naruto found himself dreading his task. _He's been leaving me alone lately. Maybe this won't be a pain in the ass._

Words were spoken as soon as Naruto's knuckles struck the ornate door. "Come in."

 _I'd rather not._ Naruto grouched to himself sullenly. Necessity trumped desire that day, causing Naruto to oblige his request and open the door. "Good morning, Ozpin."

"A good morning to you, Mr. Uzumaki," Ozpin smiled at him. If the goal of the action was to put Naruto at ease, it failed. "What brings you to my office this day?"

Naruto stopped fifteen feet away from Ozpin's desk. A clear and defined barrier drawn between the two of them. "I can't make it to class today. Won't be a regular thing, but I'm heading out of town for a day trip. I'll be back for tomorrow's classes."

Naruto didn't ask permission, he didn't offer an explanation, and he didn't intend to do either in the near future. Glynda had backed off suddenly, switching from investigation to catering in an instant. He would have liked to claim credit for that — to believe that his question game with Ozpin had done the trick. He knew that wasn't the case; Glynda had kept pushing for days his ceasefire with the headmaster.

Still, there was something about the way there were acting. Naruto wasn't the smoothest operator, he knew that. Plenty of people had taken advantage of his lack of skill in politics and planning. It didn't take a genius to see the complete change of operating procedure that the Beacon staff had taken with him. Naruto had a feeling that if he was to push an issue like this, it'd go his way.

Ozpin smiled softly. "Your coursework is splendid, you're are the top of your class in combat, and you've done a wonderful job helping your fellow students. I believe we could make to bend the rules a bit. I imagine you could use a day off."

 _Well, that cinches it. They're catering to me._ And it didn't take a genius to figure out why. Oz has decided he was too valuable or dangerous to lose. In some aspects that wasn't so bad. In others… Naruto just wanted a normal school life of normal boring things. At least, that's what he thought he wanted. Did he?

He'd ended up training two teams while intending to add Cinder's to the mix in the next couple days. He was making sure to get good grades, his control of his power had inarguably slipped over the past weeks. It hadn't felt like it at the time — the abilities and skills Naruto had used were but a drop in the well of his talents — yet he knew they would put him in a league of his own in Beacon. If he wanted anonymity it would have been better to aim for being average in everything.

Average wasn't fun. Surrounding himself with people who thought themselves his better had rekindled his desire to smack them into the ground. It may have been a primitive, masculine desire for conquest, but knowing that couldn't change the fact that he felt it. He could try and control it — forcing himself into mediocrity for the sake of a perfect cover. He'd be bored to tears if he did, then what would be the point of coming here in the first place.

 _Huh… looks like I did what I would have wanted to if I thought about it without thinking about it._ Naruto mused. People didn't luck into the decision they'd ultimately choose given appropriate time to think about the choice very often. The whole process was a long enough tangent that Naruto hadn't managed to respond to Ozpin yet.

"As nice as that sounds, I'll have to take my R&R later. I didn't come all the way here just to tell you I'm playing hooky."

"Oh?" Ozpin's surprise was evident. "I believed you were long overdue for a day to decompress. Seldom have I seen a huntsman in training so single-minded in his craft. I don't believe I've seen you do anything other than schoolwork, resting, or training both Mr. Winchester's team or your own — or both, as I've heard is a recent development."

Naruto frowned. "Not exactly how I wanted to spend my time, believe me."

"You're under no obligation to train Mr. Winchester and his team. I've heard that you find Professor Oobleck's class to be challenging, and yet your grades are excellent. What few activities you do outside of those tasks have been related to huntsmanship in some way. From where I sit, it appears that you have many areas from which you could reallocate your time."

Naruto didn't like the way Ozpin looked at him when he said that. It was a look of bemused condescension that made him feel like the child he was pretending to be. "If you're gonna do something, might as well do it well." Naruto shrugged, still standing where he'd originally stopped.

That philosophy was part of who he was. It was a large part of why his under-the-radar plan had flown so far out the window. Naruto didn't take work easy. He had no problem coming home after a long, difficult mission and lazing about for a few days. What he didn't do was take the mission easy, or the training leading up to it. If he was going to be a ninja, he wanted to give it everything he had. Same went towards being a ramen chef, or a village leader, or whatever else he tackled in his life. The less he thought about the need to conceal his power, the more he naturally let it leak out — who he was leak out.

"A hard belief to fault, to be sure. I was willing to bend the rules on the account that I thought you needed some much earned leisure, but I'll have to deny your request if you intend to take a request as a huntsman," Ozpin informed him. "All such activities need to be sanctioned and vetted by Beacon before they can be approved."

 _That's tacit approval if I've ever heard it._ There was nothing stopping him from denying he was going to do a job, obtaining approval, then doing said job. Oz was smart enough to know that, which meant it was intentional. _How high is he valuing me to give me free reign like that?_ Naruto wondered. "No mission… I'm going to pay my respects."

That wasn't the answer Ozpin was expecting. His features mollified as he bowed his head slightly. "If you need more time to return home I can excuse any missed coursework."

"I won't be returning home," Naruto's words serving as an answer to Ozpin and another reminder to himself. He needed it today. "I'll be hiking outside of Vale and setting up a small shrine for the day. Nothing I'll need to miss more than a day for."

Ozpin nodded. "Do be sure to have your scroll on hand to contact us if anything goes awry."

Naruto considered that the conclusion of their conversation. There wasn't anything he had left to say at any rate. The lack of response when he turned around and began to walk out of the office indicated the headmaster agreed.

Naruto's footsteps back to his room were anything but light. They were heavy steps for a heavy day. Paying remembrance to those who had fallen or passed on his birthday had been an easy decision. The day meant little to him before, yet what better day to thank those who had given him so much? He would have asked further in advance if he'd remembered the day was coming. Traveling the Elemental Nations had left him with a flexible schedule, while leading the Maelstrom had afforded him the luxury of a day off when he needed it. Asking permission wasn't something he'd needed to do for an overwhelming majority of his life.

With the hurdle known as Ozpin cleared, the only thing left to do was tell his team he wouldn't be in class. In a way, they'd managed to grow on him — a childish way. By the time Naruto was their age, he'd lived through a war. Like children, most of the Beacon students acted as if they were invincible. Blake had jumped into the middle of thirty armed terrorists with no escape route as if she was a protagonist protected by the most foolproof of plot-armor. He'd had to remind himself time and time again that it was the difference in age and experience.

He'd made the same mistakes, loathe as he was to admit it. When Sasuke had been taken he almost sold his soul to Kurama to get him back. It was short-sighted, obviously. Lamentably foolish, definitely. And above all, it was undeniably childlike. If he'd succumbed to Kurama then he would have gotten nothing he wanted while losing everything, literally. So blinded by grief and loss he'd been unable to see that at the time. It had taken the adults in his life setting him straight for his path to become visible once more.

Unable to assess risk, believing that their friends would always be there, unwilling to realize that the people they trained with might die… you didn't realize the follies of youth until you were old enough for them to simply be follies. And if those were the type of mistakes you were making, you needed a personal deity to keep you alive. A godly chakra beast worked as a viable substitute.

"I'm back," Naruto announced himself as he entered their dorm. It wasn't locked, something that he should probably look into considering recent events.

"Welcome back." Pyrrha greeted him from her bed. She was still in a pair of red silk pajamas with a button up top. Naruto cursed himself for feeling the need to note that two of her top buttons were undone along with two of her lower ones. The latter revealed the toned area around her navel, while the prior… revealed other things.

Ren nodded an acknowledgement his way before returning to his task — readying his bookbag for class. The sound of water indicated that Nora was in the shower. Other than himself, Nora was often the first in the shower every morning. Beacon's system had an almost limitless supply of hot water. On rare occasion, the temperature dropped to lukewarm — an unacceptable crime against humanity in Nora's eyes.

"You all ready for class?" Naruto asked, directing his eyes towards Ren. It just so happened that Ren was on the completely opposite side of the room as Pyrrha. Who knew? Certainly not Naruto. It wasn't like he was intentionally avoiding looking at her or anything.

"As soon as I finish preparing my materials," Ren responded. Naruto noticed he was already dressed in his uniform.

Pyrrha yawned as she gestured at her own bag with her left hand. Naruto's battle-trained eyes were pulled towards the movement — decades of instinct telling him to track any motion working against him. Her top was sloughing off her left shoulder slightly, baring it fully as it grasped onto the side of her arm. She always fought with her shoulders bared, so why was it so much more sensual like this? "I've got everything ready for class. I'm only waiting for the shower."

"Y-yeah… Nora can really take awhile in there." _Damn you, traitorous tongue!_ Naruto cursed his stutter. He had to remind himself he was sixty-seven- no, sixty-eight! A man's brain was a treacherous thing.

"Are you ready?" Ren turned Naruto's own question on him. "That looks like Port's essay on your desk."

Appearances matched actuality in this case. Ren's question was a perfect segue into Naruto's original reason behind stopping by the dorm. "No class for me today. I'm heading out of town — should be back tonight."

Ren's surprise was understandable. People didn't skip class in Beacon. It was weird how thorough the students were about their attendance compared to how lax most were with their training. His shock was soon replaced with an understanding of a sort. "You were getting permission from the headmaster."

"I got the go ahead. No problems there." Naruto replied. Ren's words hadn't sounded like a question, but it never hurt to clarify.

"Is there an emergency?" Pyrrha's face bore earnest concern for him. It was enough to make Naruto smile. Of all the people that could have been his partner in Beacon, he was glad it was Pyrrha. He'd had to drag her away from training to attend Ruby's party, and even then she did it reluctantly. She gave her job as a huntress the respect it deserved. In a sea of kids playing at being warriors, it was an endearing maturity that she possessed.

CRDL was better now. RWBY looked like they might be getting there. Ren was making leaps and bounds while Naruto had no idea what went on in Nora's head. Pyrrha had taken herself seriously before she met Naruto. He was sure she would continue doing so even if he left someday. Having one person that he didn't feel the need to meddle with in order to keep them alive was a relief worth its weight in gold.

If she didn't have unpredictable, reasonless mood swings she would almost be perfect.

"Nothing like that. I'm going on a small hiking trip." Naruto placated her. Pyrrha's concern was washed over with relief, only to be replaced by confusion a second later.

"A hiking trip? During school?"

"It's an annual tradition of mine. Do it every October tenth, no negotiation," Naruto clarified. "Happened to fall on a school day this year."

"Forgive my saying so, but you don't seem the type to make an occasion out of something like a hike." Ren's observation was sufficient to make Naruto wave the flag of surrender. It wasn't like he needed to hide what he was doing, more that he was trying to be considerate of everyone.

"As much as I love a good hike through the woods, you're right. I'm going to pay my respects to the deceased."

Naruto received instant validation for his previous vagueness as the mood in the room took a sharp turn towards Melancholy Street. Everyone reacted to death differently, yet there were hardly any that were positive. In time you learned to accept that the people you loved, the people who made life worth living had left your realm and moved onto another. In that way, it was as if Naruto himself had died to all his comrades from home.

Now he was glum too.

"Understood," Ren acknowledged with a jerk of his head. More than anything else it looked like an attempt to pull his head out of the thoughts that were hovering around it. "If we could not mention this to Nora…"

"I was going to try and avoid mentioning it to you too." Naruto rolled his eyes.

Ren chuckled dispassionately, the scars of loss on his heart laid bare. "My apologies for being nosy. We'll see you when you get back tonight?"

"Count on it." Naruto gave him a thumbs up. His situation with Ren had warmed over in the past couple of weeks. Of all the people at Beacon, his ability to detect Naruto's chakra made him the most concerning. Viewing his teammate as a threat was rather mercenary when he thought about it. He tried not to think of it like that — consciously at least. Ren had given him a rather long line of credit and Naruto wanted to make sure he did right by that. Brushing up against Kurama's chakra and then trusting them? That was the definition of giving him the benefit of the doubt.

One thing Naruto knew was that no matter how old he got, people would always find a way to surprise him. You couldn't account for everything. "I'll join you."

* * *

It had been some time since Naruto walked this path. If he were a normal person the number of times he'd walked from Vale to his cave would have been sufficient to forge a beaten path. He'd always walked with light steps, careful not to leave a trail between the town and what had been his home for a year. That meant the journey there was more laborious, his heavy-laden ruck only exacerbating the task.

If Naruto had been worried about Pyrrha keeping up, he needn't have been. The gnarled roots of the trees creating a bumpy, uneven path had their effect on the spartan, yes, but it was not to the point where Naruto believed she was holding him back. He _could_ leave her in the dust if ever he chose to, obviously, but not today. Today his pace was slow, his footsteps deliberate and measured. It was not a day for speed. It was a day for remembering.

Pyrrha had been silent since they boarded the bullhead to Vale. Naruto appreciated her for that… for all of it, really. He'd joined Hinata at the Hyūga house many times to mourne Neji. He'd had more of a personal connection to Neji compared to Pyrrha's complete lack of knowledge, so it wasn't exactly the same. Even so, he'd joined Hinata to pay his respects to Hizashi when he passed as well. His own lack of knowing the man mattered little. His presence had made things easier on Hinata, so he'd been there.

He hoped she'd be okay without him.

Naruto broke their marching muteness. "We're ten minutes out."

Pyrrha nodded, and they continued. Once more the quiet enveloped them. Birdsong, the scampering of woodland creatures across the canopy branches, and the rustling of leaves both they and the wind caused joined together as the music humming in their ears. If there was one thing above all that caused Naruto to appreciate his partner it was the lack of accommodation she required.

If he was with Ruby he'd no doubt be thinking of ways to keep her entertained. Every moment he spent with Cardin was a moment they could talk about CRDL in an effort to increase the chances those bozos lived past their first day on the job. Pyrrha's combat ability was nothing before Naruto's, nobody's was. By the standards of Remnant, she was more than competent enough to fend for herself.

Naruto was sure any obstacle unfortunate enough to wander across her path would be something she could deal with. Her learning of the Iron Sand had only put his mind further at ease. The professors might be able to beat her, Cinder too once he gave her power back. He may have been concerned with the latter if not for the fact that there was no reason for Cinder to pick a fight with his partner. Pyrrha might seek her out on a battlefield if push came to shove, but Naruto could always direct Pyrrha away from her if it came to that. He didn't think the issue with Cinder would come to a contest of arms.

If it did, he'd end it.

Traveling without conversation, no need to lecture or cater, it was nice. Even when he'd been in the Maelstrom Village he had spent a majority of his time teaching, training, or serving the village's needs in some capacity. The year leading up to Beacon had been a frenzy of information gathering and language learning. Apart from Kurama, Gyūki, and Shukaku, Naruto wasn't used to having someone accompany him that he didn't feel the need to help keep alive. Remnant's standards were a lot lower than his home's, true, but that didn't take away from Pyrrha's competence.

Speaking of Gyūki. _You awake?_

 _Mmmmm._ Gyuki responded affirmatively.

 _You want me to let you out once I've set everything up?_

 _Mmmmm._

It wasn't much of a conversation, not by their recent standards. The two of them had been chatty since his arrival at Beacon. Gyuki had let Naruto know his opinions on things before — it wasn't like he was reserved with his opinions — there was an easily discernible difference between the involvement the eight tails had taken in his life before coming to this school and after. This simple line of communication was like a return to form for the two of them.

Grateful as Naruto was for that, he couldn't help but be concerned. _You alright?_

 _Hmmmm?_

 _You've been quiet for a week or more._

 _Mmmmm._

 _Something wrong?_

 _Mmmmm._

Naruto's patience was starting to fray. _Are you going to tell me what's wrong or are you just going to keep mumbling?_

Gyūki heaved a heavy sigh filled with immense exhaustion. _I attempted to speak to you. Nothing came of it. If my words are not to be heeded, why bother speaking them?_

 _We disagree on how I should live my life, so you give me the silent treatment? Didn't think you were that petty._

 _Pettiness has no place in one as old as I. I've been silent for your benefit._

That gave Naruto pause. _… My benefit?_

 _We disagree on many things. Turning your birthday into a time of grief, for example._ Gyūki hesitated, uncertain whether or not he should remain silent or speak. _Unlike the Naruto-boy of the past, you are old and set in your ways. I could not convince you to view those at Beacon as your friends — you insist on viewing them as children._

Naruto blew a stray bang out of his eyes. _They are kids. I'm more than triple their age._

 _And in a century you'll be tripling the age of the elderly. Will you use the same pretext to refuse to bond with anyone then?_

Naruto wanted to groan. He easily would have if Pyrrha wasn't there. _I'm saying they're kids as a shorthand. The real problem is they all act like they're normal kids in a normal school. It doesn't matter how much easier missions are in this world — they won't be something they can approach carelessly._

 _I agree with that sentiment, in theory._ Gyūki paused. Naruto could see the disagreement coming a mile away. _Admittedly, some of them are as you to describe. I am able to consent to that. So too should you be able to realize that there are some that aren't. That Winchester boy and his team have devoted their lives to training. We have not seen them do anything but in weeks. While it is true that Valkyrie may not be the most composed individual, she does as she is told and approaches her work in earnest. Many more are self-driven, not asking you to motivate them and only asking you impart your skill. Not every child at this academy acts as such._

Naruto didn't respond. This time it wasn't out of exasperation or overall doneness with the conversation, rather his lack of sureness of what to say. It was easy to say that CRDL were a bunch of teenage boys, that as an old man there was no way to befriend them. From a perspective far detached from his own, did that mean there was nothing they could do to prove themselves from his point of view?

It wasn't like he had a list of grievances against the group that made him view them as young. Russel swore a lot, they weren't all that strong or put together, they bickered… He had bickered with Sasuke until the bitter end, both of them pushing seventy. It wasn't like he himself acted his age across all aspects of life. Was he just putting some of the Beacon kids in a box? Had he assessed them as kids and called it a day?

 _I'll… think about it._ Naruto eventually replied. Gyūki didn't respond in any words. Naruto could feel the surge of contentedness that buffeted his mind and knew the ox-octopus was satisfied. It was the most ground Naruto had given on the issue.

His conversation with Gyūki had been enough to pass the time. Naruto found himself at the base of the mountain that hosted his cave. Pyrrha's attendance had assured it was a journey he was going to make on foot. He preferred it that way. Walking all the miles toward the mountain with his full ruck was a physical reminder of the weight he carried.

"We're here," Naruto said two words to Pyrrha before gingerly removing the rucksack from his back and placing it on the ground. It was a modern pack he'd purchased in Vale. He was reminded of that detail when he reflexively went to unfasten a latch only to find his hand grasping air. The rucks here didn't use buckles or tied off strings, opting instead for zippers. It wasn't like his home hadn't had zippers — some satchels had started using them in recent years — as much as the fact that he was unaccustomed to them. He'd decided on a zippered ruck because he wanted to ensure the safe passage of his cargo. He wasn't willing to let anything happen to these treasures.

This was where Pyrrha's presence did make things more difficult. If he was alone, he'd use wood style to make a proper shrine. It wasn't like he could just ask her to turn around, make a shrine, then expect her not to question how it came into existence. That meant making it by hand or improvising. Naruto had learned far more carpentry during his tenure as the Maelstrom leader than was necessary for such a simple task. But once more, that involved revealing skills that would be hard to explain.

If he somehow managed to chop a tree, debark and buck it, cut it down into planks, cut that down into smaller planks, then subsection those planks into the size he actually needed all without using any tools, that'd raise some red flags. Not to mention how a top-of-the-class huntsman also had years of carpentry experience. There were only so many talents he could have before people started moving from suspicious towards disbelieving. _Maybe I messed up making that broth._

Without much else he could do, Naruto decided to make up for his lack of tradition with opulence. Tapping into Shukaku's power, Naruto raised his hands and flattened his palms. A shrine of earth wasn't tradition, but it would have to do.

It took careful control, a fine precision to sculpt with sand manipulation. It was similar to what he was asking Pyrrha do to with the iron dust, except where she was asked to create functional attacking forms like spikes or spears, Naruto was creating an elaborate structure. A shrine erected itself, shelves protruding from the front. Once that form had solidified, Naruto started on the detail work. Creating individual placards, summoning them in front of the shelves, and inscribing symbols on each individual one.

Once that was finished, all that was left was touch-up. He wasn't a fancy man, not by any definition, but he went the extra mile this time. Swooped cornices embellished the underside of the shrine's roof. The doors to the shrine swung out and the geometric panels he crafted with sand so thin as to appear opaquely translucent. It was a tall structure. At least as tall as he was.

There was much it needed to carry.

Naruto's touch was that of worship as he unzipped the ruck and reached into its depths. He pulled out a photo in a frame. It was a picture of Tsunade-baachan, back when she was still the Hokage. Naruto had been there when she was a proud — if somewhat belligerent at times — leader of the Leaf. He'd been there to help her after the Fourth War. He'd returned to the Leaf when he heard she fell sick. He'd been there when she passed. He remembered many things about Tsunade-baachan, but he preferred to remember her like she was when he was a kid; a leader who put aside what she wanted to do and did what was best for the people of the Leaf.

He placed her picture on the lowest shelf, a placard bearing the symbol of the Leaf attached to the front of the shelf below her picture. She was the Leaf's Fifth Hokage. The woman he had once aspired to take over for. Satisfied that the frame holding her photo was stable, Naruto reached into the ruck once more. Carefully peeling the protective foam that he'd used to safely pack all of the frames, he removed the next one.

His father and mother stood side by side in a straight profile picture. Both of them were smiling, his father's body positioned just slightly behind his mother's. They'd been dead his entire life, unable to see the man he'd grown up to be. He had one brief chance at seeing them during the fight with Nagato. One more when his father was brought back as a puppet during the Fourth War. Tsunade's picture was there to make sure that she was never forgotten by the world. Minato and Kushina Uzumaki's picture was there to guarantee they were never forgotten by their son. He'd only seen them once or twice each in his entire life. The picture helped anchor their memory in his mind.

One by one he withdrew frame after frame. Nagato, Asuma-sensei, Chiyo-baasama, and more. Frame after frame, person after person Naruto placed them on the shelf of the shrine. People who had helped him. People who had made the ultimate sacrifice. Some were even enemies that had done good when given the chance. They were all people who had impacted his life… all people who would never have the chance to impact a life again.

There were three pictures left in Naruto's ruck. If his previous handling was described as one of worship, these three were handled as if the mere act of observing them was enough to make them shatter like glass. With a Leaf placard to represent him, the first portrait of the top shelf was Ero-sennin's. Beside him was a symbol of the Cloud, and with it, Naruto paired Bee's picture. Finally, there was one spot remaining. One last symbol of the Hidden Leaf Village.

And on that spot the photo of Neji Hyūga. With that every photo Naruto had placed was present. He had never counted how many frames now rested upon the shrine's shelf. To do so would be a disrespect He would never allow himself to commit. This was not about him — not about the people he had lost. This was about the many shining lights that had once been in the world that were now extinguished.

Their passing, their sacrifice, none of it was in vain. In some way, everyone assembled on this day had passed on their light to the next generation. Chiyo-baasama had ensured the Sand's most prosperous period throughout the village's existence by saving Gaara. Tsunade had provided for the Leaf and all its inhabitants for years, enabling them to grow and prosper. Nagato had helped Naruto realize what it meant to forgive by showing him what happened when you held on to your pain. They all had passed on their light in one way or another. It had not died with them.

But how long could that go on? Eventually, there would be a generation that had not heard of The Frog Sage. One of the Sand's greatest puppet masters may be lost to the annals of time. Naruto hadn't been willing to accept that. To this day he still wasn't. He committed himself to the perfect plan — a way in which their legacies would never be lost. He would remember them. He would pass on their teachings in every way he could.

Bee's sword style, the way of the sennin, Tsunade's strength. All of those were techniques he had learned. He'd practiced with chakra threads, learning to construct his own puppets. He wasn't that good at it, preferring to punch things up close and personal. That didn't matter. He would learn. He would carry on the legacy of those who had done all they could to get him and his world this far.

With all of the pictures placed, Naruto's hand dropped to his stomach. Pooling his chakra into his fingers, he twisted the middle ring of the modified seal. Gyūki materialized by his side in his most compressed form. The ox-octopus barely made it past his knee. Gyūki didn't turn to look at Bee's picture. He tilted his head up towards Naruto.

 _Be considerate._ Was all he said to Naruto. He understood. The meaning wasn't veiled in the slightest after all. Naruto inclined his head to look at Pyrrha. She had built a small distance and her head was bowed. It was far enough to not distract while being close enough to be present.

 _She's the considerate one_. Naruto had gotten lost in his task and Pyrrha had noticed. She didn't know who these people were. Some may have said that made her a poor companion for a day such as this. Those some would find themselves at odds with Naruto. He hadn't needed a close relationship with Hizashi to be there for Hinata. And the same applied to Pyrrha.

"Her name was Tsunade Senju," The tip of Naruto's pointer finger rested softly on the corner of the frame. Pyrrha looked towards the picture, uncertainty of what to do almost a billboard on her face. Naruto couldn't bring himself to laugh, not today, but he smiled and waved his hand for her to move next to him. "I called her granny."

"Her?" Pyrrha asked in shock. She would have been more aghast if she wasn't so timid from the situation she was in. "But she's so beautiful."

Naruto's inability to laugh was quickly overruled by an involuntary snigger. "She put a hell of a lot of work into that. Her semblance… gave her control over a body's cells. She used it to heal others, herself, and force her body to look younger than she was."

Tsunade's picture was one taken when she was wearing the Hokage hat with her normal outfit. The plunged neckline and heels had always made her look more vivacious than any Hokage rightfully should have, and she knew it. Tsunade grinned up towards the camera as her left hand grasped the tip of the hat. The angle of the shot did a great job at emphasizing things that He couldn't say needed any help with being noticed as they were. She was always like that… struggling to maintain her youthful appearance even in her sickbed as she died.

"A semblance that can heal others? What an incredible gift…"

Naruto rejected Pyrrha's words out of reflex. He'd seen Tsunade-baachan to the same so many times it was an involuntary reaction. "She thought of it as a necessity. She pushed the village to find people with the ability to heal and to incorporate one into all of our teams. She created the foundation for training and conduct for the medical types in our village," Naruto's lips weren't curled into a smile, not really. There was a fondness in his eyes that gave his neutral expression warmth. "She always told the medical staff that they were required to die last. If they died early on, who would heal the injured?"

It was a legacy that would save many, many lives throughout the Leaf's history. The teaching would be passed throughout all of the villages in some way at some point. Naruto didn't remember her for that, though. He remembered the woman who made him feel like a brat. The woman who teased him about women and his weakness and pushed him to train harder. He remembered the woman who almost killed herself healing the damage Nagato caused and still stood to challenge the threat against her village.

Naruto missed her so much. He missed all of them.

* * *

 _No more._ It was a thought Pyrrha had cross through her mind few times in her life. On those rare occasions, it was usually a thought about the number of autographs she'd had to sign, or maybe a horribly unsatisfying fight.

She never thought she'd say the same about pictures being pulled from a bag.

One after another, the faces of people she didn't recognize accrued on the multiple shelves before her. Old men, young men, women, and one boy who looked like he was still a teenager. Pyrrha wasn't ignorant of why they were here. All of the people being placed before her were no longer in this world. With each passing picture, she felt the reason behind Naruto's totalitarian training being forcibly brought into focus.

"His name is Asuma Sarutobi. He..." Naruto started off with another description of a man. Pyrrha listened attentively. She'd wanted to be with Naruto in his time of mourning and nothing would stop her from doing that. It wasn't what she had expected, not at all.

She'd expected a grandfather that had passed, maybe a parent or a sibling. She didn't mean to think that losing a parent was somehow easy or lesser… it was just… before her was a wall of faces. Easily fifteen, probably twenty or more photographs of people Naruto had lost. She aspired to be as strong as her partner, often wondering what drove him to such heights.

Was this it?

" _All you have to do is become so powerful nobody can stop you."_ He'd said that to Ruby the one day he'd been forced to teach the class. If nobody could stop you, nobody would dare hurt the people close to you? Was that why Naruto trained?

Naruto described them one by one. Asuma Sarutobi died protecting the team he had trained from a powerful rogue huntsman. That team went on to avenge his death by dispatching the two who had been responsible for it.

Nagato was a descendant of the clan Naruto himself belonged to. Naruto didn't have a picture of him. A headband with three vertical lines bisected by one horizontal one was placed there to match the placard.

He told her that Nagato invaded his village and injured 'a lot' of people because huntsmen from Naruto's village killed his family, among other reasons. He died using his great aura to heal the people he had harmed, saving the lives he had put in danger. Naruto chose to remember him as a man who proved that it was never too late to make the right choice.

Pyrrha had feared, and she was right to do so. The blond man wearing a familiar goofy grin was Naruto's father, and beside him was his wife — Naruto's mother. Naruto said they died bringing him into this world. While it was incredibly uncommon now, a mother _could_ die in childbirth. A father could not. For reasons beyond her fathoming — reasons Naruto did not seem to wish to share — the baby Naruto had both his parents taken from him before he ever got the chance to know them.

Person after person, face after face, Naruto explained who they were, what they did, and how they died. Most were in battle, though never to grimm. There were some who had passed naturally. A ramen chef who had helped Naruto when he was an orphan. One of Naruto's teachers — a man from whom Naruto copied his sword style. Those who had passed peacefully were few… oh so few. She'd thought the first person he introduced, Tsunade, may be among them. When she asked, Pyrrha found out that the woman had passed early due to complications from overusing her semblance.

Row by row, frame by frame, one by one Naruto introduced the people. He shared memories he'd had with some, things they'd accomplished, the legacies they'd left, and always how they died. Always. After Naruto had talked about Bee there were only two photographs remaining. A jolly looking older man with white hair and a stern looking young man with white eyes.

"He reminds me of you," Pyrrha spoke as she pointed at the white-haired man. Part of it was because she wanted to participate, to help Naruto in what must be a tough time. She didn't want to admit the second reason; she needed a break.

She knew it was possible some of her classmates might die. It might be Yang or Ruby, maybe one of the boys from CRDL. She especially didn't like admitting it could be a member of her team. Still, the fact that it _could_ happen didn't mean it was guaranteed. It was possible they'd all make it through, meet up at some breakfast place after they'd retired and tell stories about their glory days.

Hearing Naruto talk about the people displayed on his shrine made that feel like wishful thinking.

Naruto's face took a bashful grin as he rubbed the back of his head. Pyrrha hadn't seen him do that in a long time. "He was my godfather and my teacher. We had our rough patches at times… but I loved him like my own father."

"I can tell," Pyrrha smiled at him. Naruto cared about each and every one of the people he'd told her about, it was as clear as the pure blue sky above their heads. Naruto probably loved each one of them, even if he didn't say as much. There was something special about this man, Naruto had set him apart somehow. His reactions seemed a little fonder than they'd been previously. "What was he like?"

"He was a warrior, author, teacher, savior, and a pervert all wrapped up into one package. I called him Ero-Sennin for a reason," Naruto chuckled. Although Pyrrha didn't understand what those words meant, the context of them being after pervert gave it away. "He made me proofread all the erotic novels he wrote when I was only thirteen. I got better at editing and noticing mistakes over time, which only made him want me to proof more of his work."

"You… proofread erotic novels?"

"I'm even credited in a few of them," Naruto laughed, aware of how ridiculous it sounded. "Whoops. I never gave Blake that book she wanted…"

Pyrrha would dig into that gossip at a later date. For now… actually, she probably wouldn't. She wasn't one to talk about people's interests of that sort in the first place. That wasn't even getting into how Blake had earned Pyrrha's ire for that incident at the docks. That she didn't agree with the way Naruto handled Blake's reprimand wasn't to say she didn't find her deserving of one.

Naruto continued on when Pyrrha stayed silent. "He carried a heavy burden throughout a majority of his life. He was expected to raise a pupil who would help save the world; a child of prophecy. He took that fortune telling seriously and aimed to do just that."

Pyrrha wasn't sure if she should put her hand on his shoulder. She wanted to comfort him, but her young maiden spirit made her view it as intimacy. Not that she was against that as a concept… but it hardly seemed appropriate. "You're strong and help everyone around you. I'd say he succeeded."

"Maybe…" Naruto sighed, uncertain if that was the case. "I wasn't the one he thought would carry on that legacy. That-" Naruto pointed to the one person not represented by a picture. "Was Nagato."

Pyrrha felt her breath catch deep in her throat. It took four attempts for her to remember how a human being was supposed to breathe. "You said he hurt the people from your village."

"He did. Nagato and I both learned under Ero-sennin at different times. The two came to odds later in life about how to deal with the hatred in our world," Naruto breathed in deep and exhaled slowly. "It cost Ero-sennin his life."

That was the last thing Pyrrha had expected to hear. Moving past that someone had hurt innocents was one thing. If someone was truly penitent, she could find it in her heart to forgive someone for a wrong such as that. It had taken her awhile to bury the hatchet with CRDL for all the bullying they'd done. The jealousy from commandeering her leader hadn't helped expedite that process either.

But murder? Not just the killing of some nameless stranger — the murder of a man you loved as a father? That was too much. There were some things that she couldn't forgive, things that shouldn't be forgiven.

She chose to say as much. "Why? Why would you want to remember that man?"

"Nagato?" Naruto asked pointlessly. It was easily the most rhetorical question Pyrrha had heard. "He turned his life around at the end. Nagato gave his life saving those in need by brin- healing them."

Pyrrha would not cede the point. "People you say he hurt."

"Yeah, yeah he did," Naruto agreed. "So what does that mean? Once people cross a certain line they are no longer people? He hurt the people of my village so now I must hurt him?" Naruto shook his head. "I don't care if that way of thinking is just, it doesn't solve anything. The people who do believe in it end up creating even more enemies to fight down the road."

"I don't understand." Pyrrha's words were simple and from the heart. She didn't understand, not at all. How could a person kill someone you love as a father only for you to put those two together on the same shrine, the same place of grief?

Naruto picked up the headband, tracing the three lines that had been slashed through with the nail on his thumb. "I didn't either. I came face to face with Nagato, ready to avenge Ero-sennin. He'd taken the life of somebody I loved, so I was going to take his. I wanted to do it, part of me still does even after he died. But if I did, what then?"

"I kill him and prevent him from hurting anyone ever again. In the same action, I also destroy any chance he had at redeeming himself. I almost guarantee that those who loved him will now seek the same revenge on me that I sought from him. Then what? More fighting, more killing, more death, and more pain. That isn't it though — the people who wanted to avenge Nagato might have people that care about them. Those people might blame me for stealing someone they love away from them too. Then the cycle just starts all over again."

"Ero-sennin trusted me to find a way to stop the hate — to stop the cycle of pain that plagued our world. The answer I came up with was to forgive. I needed to forgive those who had done wrong and give them another chance to do right. Through discussion, talking through our beliefs, our worries, and fears we can do more than just condemn those who have done wrong. If I had labeled Nagato a murderer and viewed him with the bitterness that title commands then hundreds of people would be dead. There's often good hidden inside bad people, sometimes they just need some help digging it out."

Pyrrha didn't have anything she could say. Naruto was her age, she knew that, yet she couldn't bring herself to accept it. The trials he had faced in his life made him feel aged and wizened. Her biggest problems in life were feeling too strong and not having friends. Naruto had dealt with death, destruction, wanton hate and the sorrow that surely accompanied its aftermath. When she looked at the difference between their life experience she felt like a child.

In a way, he was a child too. Naruto had lost so much. Those sad and lonely nights where he asked himself what he could to do prevent it… it was obvious what answer he'd reached. He had chosen to grow strong in order to protect others. That childish thought that if he were strong enough, he'd never have to lose anyone again. It was a simple belief, yet Pyrrha couldn't fault him for it. She felt the same way towards her team — her first real friends. She would become strong enough to make sure that Ren and Nora were always safe.

She would become someone who could stand at her partner's side.

Pyrrha realized that this wasn't a shrine of grief. Naruto hadn't seemed sad this entire time. The worst she could accuse him of is being wistful. It was a collection of important people and memories that had shaped him into the person he was today. Her partner was grateful to the people here because all of them had enriched his life in one way or another. The good memories, the bad memories, the sad memories… Naruto wanted to remember them all.

"I like that way of thinking." Pyrrha's words fell quietly from her lips. She wasn't facing Naruto when she said it. Pyrrha looked at the shrine and all the people on it, Naruto setting the headband back in its proper place.

She wanted to look at all the people who had been there for her partner over the years. Those who had challenged him and those who helped him. She faced the good and the bad and accepted that both extremes and everything in between had to happen for Naruto to be here with her today. And for that, she only had one thing to say.

 _Thank you._ Pyrrha bowed her head before the shrine. She felt Naruto's gaze on her back as she did so until he too joined her. Both of them were grateful to these people in different ways. _I promise that I'll look after him in your stead, Ero-sennin._

They stayed that way for fifteen minutes. Pyrrha intended to do so until Naruto was prepared to return to Beacon. There was something that she realized when the sun glinted off a particular frame, calling it to her attention.

"Who is this?" Pyrrha asked, pointing to the picture on the right of the top shelf. It was the boy who looked their age with the white eyes. Naruto hadn't said anything about him.

Naruto opened his mouth, then closed it. He opened it once more only to close it again. On the third time, he finally spoke. "That is Neji Hyuga. I'll… tell you about him some other time."

* * *

Any conversation between them had flatlined at the mention of Neji Hyuga. Naruto had packed everything up and they'd been hiking back to Vale for two hours in total silence. Her assessment that Naruto was not saddened had been made to do the most immediate of about-face as gloom radiated from his entire being.

It continued when they got into Vale. It continued through the bullhead ride back to Beacon. It continued through their walk through the schools. She'd go as far as to say that Naruto looked depressed. Then, without any notice, the gloom dispelled itself. Naruto turned to her and flashed her a grin. "I'll meet you back in the dorm. I've got a few things I have to take care of."

"What things?" Pyrrha asked. She didn't want to be nosy, but she couldn't help herself. The change in mood was so forced yet so perfect that it hurt to look at him. How often had he done this without her knowing?

His grin broadened to a beam. "I'm making us all dinner tonight. Need some time to get everything finished before its ready to serve. Could you invite RWBY and CRDL while you're at it?"

"Of course." Was all she could force herself to say. Normally she'd be over the moon at the idea of Naruto cooking a meal for her. Right now she was more concerned than anything. He was hurting, she knew that. She also knew after today that the idea of empathizing with him was a bad joke. Naruto had lived through more than she had the ability to relate to, regardless of how much she wanted to be there for him. How could she understand loss in the same frame that he did? How could she understand what it took to forgive someone who murdered your mentor and father-figure?

Naruto waved his farewell and they headed down different hallways. Pyrrha presumed that he was heading towards the tiny kitchen while she returned to their dorm. Her feet automatically carried her in the right direction while her thoughts wandered freely. Her mind attempted to chew through the information she'd learned that day, trying to process it for her to use… but it was so dense and heavy. Naruto didn't feel like a huntsman in training like she was.

He felt like a huntsman, now more than ever.

* * *

 _ **And that's a wrap, folks! Looks like I'm setting it up for a Pyrrha ship, doesn't it? Ha ha ha... I'll never tell. Now that we've touched on all the characters we get to delve back into Naruto x Cinder starting next chapter. I've missed watching her think a thousand thoughts to Naruto's five. The "surely my opponent is a genius" gag is a favorite of mine. It might upset some of my younger readers to hear this, but Naruto isn't that smart people. Cinder could manipulate a human situation better than Naruto while being drunk off her ass. A small reminder that Naruto got exiled because a bunch of politicians outflanked him. He is that strong, he's not that smart.**_

 ** _For those who wish to support me, feel free to go to_** ** _p a treon . com (slash) Faulkner to do so. I don't mind the change in release schedule if you guys don't, but some might. You have the ability to influence how much I write if you want. I still like doing this, so I will continue at the pace I can with the time I have remaining. If you don't care, that's swell too. Really, I don't mind. See you guys next time!_**

* * *

 **Omake**

"So, so?!" Ruby pressured Pyrrha with excitement so thick it could make a soup. The reaper had seen her leaving the school with Naruto and asked to borrow her 'for just a second'. Pyrrha had found herself promptly dragged into a hallway while Naruto waited a fair distance away.

"It... seemed to have an effect." Pyrrha blushed, looking anywhere but in the young reaper's eyes.

Ruby fist-pumped. "I knew it! Yang always does stuff like that and all the boys are into her!"

Pyrrha didn't know if she liked the comparison, but Ruby had a point. Yang had built up quite a fan club of male students at Beacon. Pyrrha suspected it had something to do with how she wore a brown jacket that left her stomach completely bare wearing a bra that pushed her boobs so far up that they looked whoever she was speaking to in the eyes. Weiss was classically beautiful, Blake was mysteriously beguiling, Ruby was adorable, and Yang may have been a bit of a hussy. In a cute way! Pyrrha wasn't jealous or anything. Not jealous that she could walk up to Naruto, pull his arm into her ballistic missiles and watch the blood launch straight to his face.

Not jealous one bit.

"It might be too embarrassing for me," Pyrrha admitted. "I don't think I'll be doing that again."

"What?!" Ruby cried out. "If it works, it works! Do you think I try and fight Yang with sexiness? No! I fight her with cuteness!"

Pyrrha turned the same question on her. "What?" Ruby grinned deviously. She patted down her clothes, smoothing out any accidental creases in her uniform before she turned the corner and walked straight towards Naruto. Pyrrha had no idea what was going on.

"Hey, Naruto!" Ruby called out. Her partner turned to face her, the zippers on his heavy backpack chiming as he did so.

"What's up, Shortstack?"

Ruby fumed at him as her expression soured, punching his chest lightly as a means of retaliation. "I'm not short! I have a name! You're a jerk!"

Naruto chuckled, a fatherly smile took over his features. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say." He dropped his hand on her head and rustled her hair. Pyrrha could make out Ruby's elated expression, but the second Naruto looked at the reaper's face she quickly changed it to one of consternation.

"Naruto... I'm worried about Blake..." Ruby's voice took on a whining twine.

"She still obsessing over the White Fang?" Naruto asked with concern. "Have you talked to her about it?"

Ruby kicked the ground with her booted foot. "No... I'm worried that I'll mess up if I try. Like, what if I say the wrong thing?! What if I screw it all up?! I could screw everything up and then things will be terrible and my team might break up and we might not-" Naruto interrupted her by drawing her into a quick hug. Pyrrha could tell he had done it to interrupt her negative momentum. He was going to let go of her when Ruby wrapped her arms around his back, pulling her face tight into his chest and negating his attempt to let go. "I'm scared."

Ruby sounded like a wounded animal, striking a cord with Naruto's protective streak. He enveloped the small girl in his arms and held her close. It looked so warm. "No point in being scared. What will be will be. If you try your best and do everything you can then there is no point in having regrets. You got this Shorty."

Ruby gave a watery chuckle. It sounded like she was crying. "I'm n-not short." Naruto continued to hold her close, considerate of the fact that nobody likes to be seen crying.

Eventually they separated. Ruby waved her goodbye and walked past him, away from Pyrrha. As soon as she was behind Naruto (who was still waiting for Pyrrha to reappear) she turned on her feet and looked dead at where Pyrrha was peering past a corner. Pulling down the lower part of her eye she blew a raspberyy at the spartan. Not a single tear shone in her eyes.

"Oh, that manipulative little harlot!" Pyrrha fumed.

* * *

 ** _Not necessarily canon, this one. A fun take on a mischevious Ruby. If you want to imagine this actually happened, I won't stop you._**


	32. Adding Heat

**_Greetings and salutations! A little late here, but not as late as F &C! That should be out today or tomorrow x.x my apologies. The job situation has been more or less sorted out and I've got a move going on over the next month. My release schedule may be inconsistent because of it. Since I can't update here, my pa+reon has public posts regarding status updates and delays. That means regardless of whether or not you contribute money you will be able to read the posts regardless. I'd love to do status updates here since that's where most of my audience is, there just isn't a tool for that_**

 ** _I polled my patrons on pairings for Naruto out of curiosity. Well, that wasn't exactly how I phrased it but that's what it became. If you were curious, Pyrrha and Cinder received all of the votes. It doesn't change the pairing (which has already been slated), I just wanted to see what my audience thought. With that, I've covered everything I need to cover._**

 ** _Cover Art by Moonlight_**

 ** _P.S. I still don't own Naruto or RWBY, smartasses._**

* * *

 **Chapter 30**

 **Adding Heat**

Ramen at its core wasn't hard to make. That didn't mean there wasn't a gratuitous amount of technique and skill involved in the process. Any idiot could pick up a knife and stab someone with it. Someone who knew how to use a knife could do so much more. _Maybe that's too morbid for an analogy…_ Naruto reconsidered using it. There was probably a better way to explain things to present company.

"Nope! No way you know how to cook, fight, teach, and lead. If you do, I'm lodging a complaint with any and all deities!" Ruby's indignification knew no bounds.

Naruto wanted to scratch his head. How else was he supposed to react to something like that? The tight cloth that he wore to prevent any of his hair from getting into the food nixed that idea as soon as he had it. "Ayame-nee-chan was getting on in the years and she hadn't taken an apprentice."

Ren was unimpressed. "Naturally, the only one available to take over her legacy was an unparalleled slayer of grimm?"

"Somebody had to make sure kami's greatest miracle stayed in this world," Naruto grumbled.

"Don't hype it up too much Foxy. You're supposed to lower expectations so it won't disappoint."

"That was an undersell." Naruto declared in a perfectly level tone. Seventy percent of his confidence came from the fact he believed it. The other thirty percent was more distraction from trying to slice the marinated soy eggs he'd left in the refrigerator overnight, shredding the leeks, dividing the seaweed, reheating the chashu he'd spent the last three hours preparing, and all the other crap he had going on. The only thing he didn't have to worry about were the noodles. He'd mixed the dough, cut it down into noodles, and then boiled it briefly while he was working on the chashu. All he'd have to do is boil them again when it was time to serve.

He'd always used shadow clones to help him with the multitude of tasks that built up during the process of preparing ramen. Ayame had said it was cheating. At present, Naruto found the exact arguments that he'd given her were eluding him. Preparing fifteen bowls without the extra hands felt impossible. How the hell did those two make sure that all the ramen came out at the same time every time? Naruto relented, admitting defeat before the superior opponent known as time management. A lifetime spent using clones to circumvent the need for efficient management of his time had left his capability for it sorely lacking.

He had brought a pot of water to a boil and had the broth on heat. Being accustomed to cooking over a live flame made it difficult to gauge the temperature of the electric stoves, forcing him to taste the broth every few minutes to make sure it wasn't too hot or cold, adjusting the temperature as he went. He ladled a small amount of the broth into a separate pan that he was using to heat the chashu. The pork was already cooked, but warming it in the rich broth would help pack the flavor in all the more.

Cooking was not a simple task. Naruto had a more challenging time tracking the three separate burners and multiple toppings he had to prepare than he would have following three times as many shuriken. Trajectories were easy; you could only have spinning blades, knives or what have you thrown at your face so many times before you developed a knack for figuring out the path they were going to take getting there. He'd spent fifty plus years fighting and probably close to five months making ramen professionally. It was a blatant reminder that time helped teach anything.

With his defeat admitted, Naruto decided to get the bowls out one at a time. Prepping one bowl at a time let him finally finish up the first serving. He grabbed a handful of the noodles he'd prepared and dropped them into the pot with a special toothed ladle. You only boiled them between thirty seconds and a minute and you didn't want to empty the pot of boiling water by straining it to get to them. The special ladle helped keep them all together while he boiled them, then let him transfer it to a bowl when it was ready.

With the noodles in the bowl, Naruto added the toppings that were meant to be slightly submerged. With that done, he ladled a generous amount of broth from his giant stock pot into the bowl. The final act was to add the remaining toppings, the familiar fish cake resting on top of noodles, the side dipping shallowly into the broth.

"Whoever wants first, come and get it," Naruto announced as he set the finished bowl to the left of the sink, separating it from the bowls awaiting completion on the right.

Ruby was the first to take him up on the offer. His fellow leader skidded across the floor as she broke the momentum from her mad dash towards the ramen. "Nope nope nope! Not possible…" Ruby repeated like a broken record. Her incessant refutation made Naruto realize he may have been right to consider dumping the broth when he returned with Pyrrha.

These truths about his capabilities — truths that seemed insignificant — were mounting slowly but surely. At seventeen he had been a combatant who was almost without peer. His ability to lead had developed much later, though it was believable enough that he developed his capabilities for it in the field. Although it was difficult to swallow for the students that a boy their own age was so above them in battle, it was doable. Naruto came across as a man that devoted his life to being a huntsman. Considering how he'd lived it was an accurate assessment to make.

Ruby's stuttered bliss may have been a hint that he'd had more years under his belt than his appearance let on. "I-im-impppppp… imposssi…" A smarter man might have botched the meal. Naruto had considered it, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. This ramen was the legacy of Ichiraku — it was not something he could blaspheme by intentionally worsening it.

Ruby soon abandoned her attempts at communication, setting upon her food with all the voracity of the beowolves she had trained to hunt. It was adorable to watch the smallest member of their group try to fill her cheeks like a chipmunk, only to be prevented by her ineptitude with chopsticks. She quickly bastardized traditional utensil etiquette by using her broth spoon to scoop up the noodles while her chopsticks held them from underneath to reduce the downward force and minimize the chance of slippage.

"Ok, quit it with the acting Rubes. It can't be that good." Yang picked up a spare spoon and tried to scoop up some of her sister's broth. Ruby snarled like a feral beast, cradling the bowl of ramen in her arms as she beat a hurried retreat from the left side of the counter at which she'd previously been eating, safely escorting her precious cargo to the small two person table inside the kitchenette. Naruto knew he could have botched the ramen — he should have — but any hassle he'd have to go through was worth it.

Seeing Ichiraku Ramen light up a future generation was part of why he'd learned it in the first place.

Naruto didn't need to announce when the next bowl was ready. Yang's hand darted forward and claimed the bowl with speed to match a thrust from Myrtenaster. Like Ruby, Yang didn't take the bowl away from the counter before tasting. Unlike Ruby, Yang actually knew how to use chopsticks. The blonde severed a small piece of the chashu, paired it with the noodles, and then brought it to her mouth.

Her reaction was slightly bitter. "Damnit Naruto."

"What?" Naruto asked in a panic. Yang didn't use his actual name very often. Fighting grimm and whatever else the world threw at him? Easy. The thought that someone might not like this ramen? Terrifying.

"You really made this?" Yang asked.

After sixty-eight years it wasn't often that Naruto lost his cool. "Yeah- but I'm just an apprentice, so I'm nowhere near as good as my teachers. And I just want to make it clear tha-"

"It's too good, you moron!" Yang cut him off with a sigh of exasperation. She dropped her chopsticks into the bowl and migrated to the table where Ruby was endeavoring to inhale the broth of her own bowl. "As a woman that gives me all sorts of mixed feelings."

That was enough to make Naruto laugh. It was mainly out of the ridiculous maidenly charm the statement held and the person who delivered it, though relief played a healthy role in it as well. It was a small surprise that Ren was the one who entered the conversation. "When I was a child my mother always told me that women liked a man who could cook."

"Yeah, that's what everyone says! What they don't realize is what that means," Yang preached, jabbing a finger towards Pyrrha. "Imagine you have a boyfriend."

"Okay…" Pyrrha was a bit flabbergasted at having been chosen and presented with such a bizarre question.

"You want to make your boyfriend a homemade meal for Valentine's day or something like that. You spend half the day slaving over the stove, oven, and everything else to whip up the best meal you could. The thing is, no matter how hard you tried you know he could have made something better. Wouldn't that make all your hard work feel pointless?"

Pyrrha took a moment to ponder the question, tapping her lip as she considered it. "I can't really say I understand."

Yang groaned. "Fine. I didn't want to do this but let me try and huntress this up for you; imagine you go out and fight the biggest and meanest grimm you can find. You give it everything you got and you manage to barely win. Thing is, you know if it was your boyfriend's job to beat it then he'd have done it without breaking a sweat."

That struck Pyrrha far closer to home than she wanted — or even felt comfortable admitting. The reason for her discomfort remained blissfully unaware, ladling broth into the next bowl. She bit her lower lip, a subconscious attempt to keep her mouth shut. "I could see how that might be frustrating in that sense," Pyrrha admitted. "I don't see how it's the same thing with something like cooking. Everyone has different hobbies and interests. Even if my romantic partner was better at cooking, that wouldn't mean he couldn't appreciate my efforts."

"I'm with Pyrrha on this one," Naruto seconded as he passed his partner the completed bowl. "If you expect a friend or loved one to be as good as you at whatever you do, it'll just lead to disaster. A lot of the times you can do more with a smart guy and a strong guy than you can with two strong people."

Yang offered a disgruntled rebuttal that caused the conversation to devolve into a bickering squabble. Before Naruto could serve the next bowl Pyrrha had said she understood Yang's point having tasted the ramen. Naruto decried his partner for her betrayal as Yang rubbed it in his face. All the while he continued to serve ramen to the three teams.

The reception was universally positive — rave reviews abounded. Weiss had turned her nose up at the dish at first. Eventually relenting, she sipped the broth and ate a singular noodle. After dabbing the corners of her mouth with a napkin, she offered to finance a franchise for him if ever he decided to retire from being a huntsman. Naruto tucked that offer away in his back pocket; serving as a ramen chef didn't sound like the worst way to spend a few decades once this arc of his life lost its luster.

The most comical of receptions was Nora's. The girl's eyes vacantly settled on her bowl of ramen in lost mortification. When Naruto asked what was going on, Ren explained it as a crisis of faith. He found it hard to believe a bowl of ramen could impact someone's faith in whatever gods they believed in. Then again, he didn't actually know what religion's Remnant had. Maybe there was some faith that could be thrown into disarray by a bowl of noodles and broth.

It took some doing to get everyone served. The experience gave Naruto a newfound appreciation for what Teuchi and Ayame had done for decades. When the serving rush was finally done, Naruto allowed himself to slump against a wall. The sad truth was that it was all the break he could afford at the moment. There was still work to be done.

"I'll be back in a few." Naruto casually excused himself as he walked out of the kitchenette. He made sure to project his voice so that those outside would hear it too. The space wasn't large enough for all of them to sit and eat, leading to CRDL, Nora, and Ren spilling out into the hallway to find some space. _Maybe it would have been smarter to serve in the dorms? No, we wouldn't have fit in one room there either._

Nobody stopped him as he walked out. It didn't make sense for them to suspect anything. Russel had gotten an earful from Weiss for informing them he was going to 'take a piss'. To suggest that they should have suspected something would have implied he was doing something questionable. He didn't think so… at the very least it was in that debatable grey area where risk and reward were a bit tricky to nail down.

 _There's no reason for her to hurt the kids. She gains nothing and loses everything._ Naruto reminded himself. Smart types flew over Naruto's head in a lot of ways. Sixty years with Shikamaru and Naruto never once beat him in shogi. It made sense why Shikamaru was so smart and why he wasn't the sharpest kunai in the satchel when it came to planning ahead.

Shikamaru was weak. He was not.

It wasn't like Shikamaru wasn't a phenomenal shinobi. There was a difference in their battle strengths and they served different roles. A strong guy could do a hell of a lot more with a smart guy to point him in the right direction. It wasn't like he was a moron either. Naruto had accepted that he preferred to play things by ear and wing it most of the time. If he planned every single thing out then his life would have been even more boring than it already was.

It was exactly that type of thinking that caused him to get bit in the ass before. So as inept as he might have been at it, Naruto was trying to anticipate Cinder's moves. He was confident he could save the kids from any hostage scenario. He'd learned the feeling of all their auras and was confident in his ability to locate them anywhere in Vale. Any attempts to extort him through a threat to those kids would end in failure for Cinder.

 _She might not realize that though. Maybe I'll need to give her a little more to fear._ That was the tricky part. If he used her tactical logic to force her into the right decisions it would dampen the need for her to develop moral logic. _Kami, this is complicated._

There was no way for Cinder to threaten him directly. There really wasn't a way for anyone to threaten him directly. The only thing that Naruto worried about was one of them hurting the kids before asking something of him. _There would be no benefit for her._ Naruto had reiterated the thought so many times in the past few days it was practically a religious chant.

Cinder hurts one of the kids, he hurts Cinder. That logic was simple enough, but maybe she thought she could avoid him. Even if she overestimated herself so grossly as to think that, Naruto would still carry her power with him. From the slang Naruto had learned here, he'd describe what she'd done when he'd taken it at dinner as 'flipping a bitch'. He'd taken some time to study up on slang and innuendo after the hassle Cinder had caused him with their pre-fight banter in class. The point was that if she needed the power back she couldn't do anything as aggressive as firing off at the children at random just to hurt him.

She might want to, but it gained her nothing. If he could trust one thing about Cinder it was that she believed herself to be a calculating sort. That kind of person didn't fly off the rails because they got frustrated. She might obsessively plot until she devised a scheme to murder him in an act of morbid revenge like Shikamaru had with Hidan...

But she wouldn't go off the handle.

 _If it starts to look dicey I'll put a hiraishin marker on all of them and call it a day._ Naruto gave in to his paranoia. He'd made the mistake of thinking his power couldn't be outsmarted before. It wasn't an error he was in a hurry to repeat. _"What can they do? Exile me? Who the hell would they send to make me go?"_ Had been his thoughts at the time. Naruto had focused on the notion that they couldn't force him to leave, letting him be blindsided by the plans they'd laid to make him choose to leave.

Naruto cleared his head and knocked on the door in front of him. He needed to be light on his feet and ready to improvise if his plan went awry. Even with her ability to plan ahead, there was no way she could match his ability to make things up as he went. Decades of freestyling most of his plans had given him a talent for it. No matter how many permutations someone calculated there were things they couldn't account for.

"Oi, I can hear you in there! Answer the damn door." Naruto hollered as he banged on it again for emphasis. He couldn't actually hear them, he sensed them. That was a little nugget of information he'd keep to himself.

Naruto tensed as he felt movement. It was a conditioned reflex responding to movement from where he hadn't been expecting it. He'd expected someone to get up in the room and open the door, that was happening, yet it wasn't what put him on guard. He relaxed as soon as his ears caught the near-mute sound of paws covering far greater distance than they should have. By the time he felt a furry bundle scampering up his back, he was far more focused on the door.

 _I was beginning to think you'd up and left me._ Naruto spent the few seconds he had before the door opened griping.

 _The orange-haired one has me seriously considering it._ Kurama shot back. Naruto knew why his companion was here. He found Cinder interesting. Kurama was centuries old and didn't view having a good time as spending twenty days sleeping on a dorm room bed. A rambunctious pup acting out was his idea of an amusing diversion.

That was all the time they had for discussion before the door opened, the silver-haired boy standing with a loose and relaxed posture in front of them. His right arm braced the door as he stood on one foot, the other tapping the ground in even tempo. The lackadaisical way of standing exuded cockiness to the point where Naruto and Kurama had the exact same thought.

 _Damned brat._

"Sorry about that. We're not exactly holding open office hours here." The brat said smugly.

Naruto's first thought was to grab his arm and squeeze until the brat cried uncle. He decided on a route with a little less machismo — if only because he wanted to try and drag all three of them out of whatever muck they were in. "I'll try and keep that in mind," Naruto responded, causing the silver-haired boy's condescending smirk to broaden. That ticked Naruto off a little too much. "I'm going to inconvenience you now," Naruto said as he pushed his way into the room. The brat tried to shoulder check his advance.

Naruto blew past him, swinging the brat's body to the side like an opening door.

 _So much for civility. Come on Naruto, what are you? Five?_ Naruto admonished himself. He was an old man dick waving against some uppity teen. Even so, when he saw the brat's shocked expression a small satisfaction blossomed in his chest. _I'm hopeless._

"It's good to see you again." Cinder's words defused any chance of escalation between the two males. When she spoke, the brat backed off with a click of his tongue. That was telling as to the nature of the relationship between the two. He didn't treat Cinder with the sort of venerable respect that the people of Naruto's village would have shown him.

"I'm sure you're delighted," Naruto drawled sarcastically. "I'm here to bring you all over to your first group event," Naruto turned to face the other two. "Did Cinder explain the rules?"

The green-haired girl had taken a wolfish glee in his treatment of her silver-haired companion. She'd seemed equally overjoyed when Cinder checked his obvious desire to quarrel with Naruto. Her glowering anger at him when he'd casually addressed Cinder was telling too. She was a loyalist.

"They've been told what is required of them." Cinder answered for them. Once again the two who looked like they had something to say backed off. Naruto stifled the groan that wanted to resonate in his chest.

 _How the hell is this going to work out?_ He honestly didn't have a clue. His basic belief was that people turned to darkness because the light shunned them. Show somebody that there was a life outside of their perceived reality and you'd open a door for them to change.

What he didn't have was perspective.

* * *

Ren liked to believe that his leader was actually quite intelligent. Of all the teams that Nora could have been placed on, he was glad that it was Nevermore. Despite his initial wariness, Ren knew that Naruto would keep his childhood friend safe come hell or high water. Not only was Naruto strong, he also abhorred senseless risk.

It was odd. Normally you would expect an academy student as powerful as Naruto to not have a sense of what risk was. Their leader's explanations of having been deployed on missions since he was twelve definitely explained some of it.

But not all.

Ren wasn't going to dive any deeper into that well. His short stint with Naruto had taught him just how blissful ignorance could be. When he tried to dig up what Naruto was doing at Beacon it had been disastrous. Their team had fractured and their leader's intentions were more obscure than ever. When Ren decided to give Naruto a certain measure of credit — and by extension peace — things had turned around quickly.

Their leader went from being aloof to being present. He was attentive to their training, he spent time with the group when asked, and now he was even inviting them all to events of his own making. Ren had wagered that Naruto had no ill intent towards the students at the academy and decided to go out on a limb and believe it. It was a wager that had paid dividends. Ren had zero intent to question things and risk alienating Naruto again.

Over the past weeks, Ren's opinion of Naruto had gone up, leading to his gratitude for what he knew would be Naruto's protection of Nora. A strong hand to hand fighter, versatile with multiple types of weapons, a strong semblance, and commanding leadership combined had given rise to Ren's high opinion. That's why he believed their leader was actually quite intelligent.

So what on Remnant made him think that this was a good idea?

"Sorry about the wait." Naruto apologized. Those four words were all he bothered to grace them with before positioning himself in front of the stovetop once more. Ren would have appreciated a bit more than that.

"Thank you all for inviting us." Cinder bowed her head… slightly. A wry smile was worn on her face as both shield and sword as she cast a meaningful glance towards Pyrrha. Her two teammates behind her were nothing but smiles.

 _Get me out._ Was all Ren could think as the eye contact between Cinder and Pyrrha threatened to produce visible sparks. Naruto's density toward the fact that Pyrrha was bordering being in love with him was something Ren had viewed as acceptable. It didn't bother him, and as much as Nora complained about it ruining her 'ship' that wasn't enough for him to get involved. The errors of such a dismissive and passive philosophy that sought to not create needless hassle were being made abundantly clear.

Merits of his other philosophy were being exemplified perfectly by Naruto. The man had no idea the staring contest that was going on behind his back and was thusly unaffected. The silver-haired boy pointed towards Ren and then to the outside hallway. Ren couldn't even begin to imagine what Cinder's teammate wanted with him. Frankly, he didn't care all that much either. Not because he bore the man any ill will, rather that he would have accepted no matter what he wanted.

It was a viable excuse to get out of the room.

CRDL had taken their ramen back to their room, as had Weiss and Blake. Weiss cited her desire to eat at a table and not sit on the floor like some ruffian. Blake hadn't offered much explanation at all. Naruto, Pyrrha, Cinder, and her green-haired teammate were the only people remaining in the kitchenette. Ruby and Yang had both migrated to the hallway once they were finished with their food to stay and chat while clearing up the tablespace for Nora and Ren.

"Sorry about her," the silver-haired boy apologized with an earnest smile. "I swear she isn't normally like this. The name is Mercury, by the way."

That gave Ren some small measure of relief. He thought the entire team might bear some grudge after Naruto had defeated their leader. Mercury seemed normal enough "It's fine. Nothing we haven't had to deal with before… though your leader is a bit forward."

"Haha… you have no idea," he sighed as he leaned back into a wall squat before letting gravity carry him all the way to the floor. "She was interested in him after their right. After their dinner... she's had a one-track mind."

Nora squinted meaningfully at Mercury "Does that mean she like-likes our fearless leader?"

"She might," Mercury admitted. "Not exactly something she'd talk about to me or Em so I can't say for sure."

Nora's face contorted as she was forced to swallow the bitter pill that news brought with it. Ren couldn't say he was happy to receive anything other than a hard denial either. In his case, it was more the fact that the two outwardly interested in his leader were passive to the point where either of them making headway was an impossibility. Cinder had laid it on thicker in the first five minutes of meeting Naruto than Pyrrha and Velvet would in the next five years.

He didn't have a particular penchant for interfering with people's love lives. What he did have was a nose for trouble. Cinder was hot. In this case, Ren meant that metaphorically. Heat is energy. When you force enough energy into a stable elemental compound the molecules are able to form new bonds. That was what had him concerned. If Naruto wanted to date, far be it from Ren to stop him.

The issue was that Naruto wasn't interested in romance. That was the only conclusion Ren could derive that explained his leader's level of obliviousness, which again, he wouldn't mind nine times out of ten because it was none of his business. That's what he'd thought for his entire life; their life, their business. The fault in that way of thinking was that when someone was completely unaware of what was going on around them it became the problem of the people around them.

Ignorance was indeed bliss.

"As long as I'm kept out of it your leader is free to whatever she wishes with ours." Ren put as much verbal distance between him and the warzone he was sure to be as he could, despite Nora's look of abject betrayal.

Mercury chuckled at that. "You and me both. Here's to hoping we can all get along and make this as painless as possible."

* * *

"Cinder, you've got to be joking," Mercury complained.

"And why would you think that?" She asked him. Her voice was level, the everpresent seductive lilt that made a man question danger and sense in full force.

"You asked us to make nice with a bunch of Beacon brats?" He fired back without missing a beat. "No way in hell do I want to, and no way in hell that Em can."

"Bite me."

"You wish."

"I have faith in both of you to succeed in your tasks," Cinder offered seldom given praise. "I also have faith in you to realize what happens should you fail."

That was enough to make Emerald's fight die out, the girl nodding in submission and agreement. Mercury was not so easily placated. "You wanted us to figure out that Nikos chick's semblance and we did. Why the hell are we worrying about Uzumaki? It looked like he'd be good in a fight, but you said all we had to be concerned about were the women in Beacon. I emphasize that keyword, _women_."

"Does it matter?" Emerald questioned him scathingly. "Threats to Cinder's plan need to be dealt with."

"Chill, Em. I'm only suggesting that we leave the handling of the fairer sex to the one most capable of handling them. Give me some time and I'll find all their weaknesses."

Mercury's words were received with spluttering laughter from Emerald. She tried multiple times to formulate a witty retort. Every attempt ended in failure due to the overpowering amusement racking her entire body. Mercury didn't share in her mirth, appearing dangerously close to offering a more physical rebuttal.

The sound of Cinder's voice pulled focus back to her. "It will be me who primarily interacts with Uzumaki. I intended to leave the girls to you in the first place… provided you prove competent enough to handle them."

"Now why didn't you lead with that?!" Mercury gave her a grin and a two syllable laugh.

"Because I do not need to make a job interesting for you to do it," The danger in Cinder's voice overtook the seductiveness. "I'm letting you handle the women because I believe it is where you're best suited. Should you prove that I'm wrong in my assumption, you will be punished. Am I understood?"

"I won't let you down," Mercury was glib by nature. When you killed your father you either found yourself grim and serious or you treated life itself as a joke. The second option had appealed to him far more than the first. As easy going as he was, even he knew there was a limit to how far he could push things. Cinder wasn't his friend. They weren't partners. Mercury was a convenient tool in her belt. For his service, Cinder made sure his world stayed interesting.

That was good enough for him.

"Then both of you need to listen closely. All of us have our roles to play. Make sure you play them well."

* * *

Cinder had remained inside the kitchenette with Naruto and Pyrrha, sequestering the three of them away from the remainder of the group. Out of sight out of mind was proving accurate as the three of them talked like there was nobody there. Saying the three of them were talking may have been a mislabeling of the situation… Two of them were having a much different conversation than the third.

"I didn't know you were leaving to invite Cinder to join us," Pyrrha told Naruto. Mercury could hear how wide and forced her smile was without seeing her from the effect it had on her voice.

Naruto wasn't given a chance to respond before Cinder did it for him. "I was surprised as well. The three of us had planned to spend a night in finishing up a backlog of work when Naruto invited us to your little event."

"I told you to keep your schedule free." Naruto reminded her remorselessly.

"And here I am. You were so _incessant_ on us being friends I just had to give in."

Mercury couldn't see or hear anything from his position leaning against the wall. He also wasn't going to risk sticking his neck out by peaking. The blonde girl and the small girl in all red and black shared his thoughts, looking curious while not being so much so that they chanced being caught. Mercury knew their names — no way to get off on the wrong foot with a girl like forgetting their name once they'd introduced themselves, which both of them had. He found it easier to refer to them by their incredibly obvious color schemes, even if he wouldn't do that out loud.

"Incessant?" The Nikos girl asked, her already poor facade chipping even further.

Cinder's simpering condescension could win awards with how well it could piss people off. "Naruto has something I really want. He's tragically refusing to give it to me, pending my meeting of certain conditions."

"She wants Naruto's help on a project she's working on. They couldn't agree on terms and she's sorta bitter about it. I'm guessing messing with his partner is Cinder's way of getting him back. " Mercury whispered an explanation to the two sisters. That was the explanation Cinder had told him to give.

The actual reason Cinder gave was that he was stronger than Nikos. That made him the only potential blip in their plan they'd yet to smooth over now that they knew that girl's semblance was magnetism. The smaller one had wrapped her head in her cloak to hide the blush that was causing her face to match the red of her cape. The blonde- Yang looked impressed.

"I gotta ask, is she normally like this?" Yang asked quietly.

Em's giggle was sugary sweet to Mercury's ears. "Try not to hold it against her. Cinder's used to guys falling over one another to get to her. Finding somebody who doesn't is a novelty for her." The saltiness of the ramen Naruto had served him did a fine job keeping his mouth too full to make fun of her for it. He shouldn't break character, but Em acting like this? It was almost too tempting to resist.

"Can't fault her for that," Yang's empathy was transparent. Mercury took careful note of that.

Cinder's job was to stir the pot while they used it to get close to the people in Naruto's confidence. Keeping Naruto's eyes off the two of them and creating an easy opening to bond with them in one stroke. Nothing quite like apologizing for a slightly misbehaved team member to break the ice. Cinder said she had a couple more irons in the fire as far as why she was doing things this way was concerned. She didn't elaborate what those were and he didn't care.

"Well I can," Mercury groused. "Plenty of jealous girlfriends that get pissy when she talks to their boyfriends like that. I wouldn't care if it didn't always find a way of splashing on us. We don't get to make many friends when she does things like this." He left it at that. Saying something like 'I hope we can all be friends' would make him seem desperate. He wanted one of them to get the idea without his saying so.

Bashing Cinder had also scored him a few points. Nora Valkyrie seemed to like him for complaining about Cinder. That was part of the reason Cinder chose to be the monkeywrench for this plan. Her innuendo-packed introduction with Naruto had put her on plenty of his admirers' shit list. Convincing girls who saw their flirting and felt jilted that she wasn't interested was an uphill battle. Doing that while trying to get close enough to Uzumaki to determine his exact combat strength, weaknesses, or other vulnerabilities was a tall order even for Cinder. Better to steer into the skid and make use of the animosity rather than waste time trying to fix it.

Lie Ren was more empathetic towards the idea of a partner making his life challenging. Mercury wasn't anywhere near as stoked about scoring points with a dude. _Eh, whatever gets the job done. Is he talking about his partner? That chick of his does look like a handful. She isn't half bad looking either._

"Ummmm…" Ruby started to speak nervously. "If you wanted to be our friends…"

 _Like taking candy from a baby. Now to reel the rest in._ "I sounded so lame right then. I didn't mean you had to be our friends or anything." Mercury played the bashful fool. If he had a choice he always chose to be the smooth operator. This was one rodeo where Cinder had vetoed that course of action instantly. The goal here was one of those homegrown organic friendships they had on Sunday morning specials. Getting in with this lot without seeming like they were trying to get in was the best way to do things. Any questions they asked down the line about Uzumaki would be less likely to raise any alarms that way.

"We wouldn't want to impose," Em added. She was such a sweet and dainty thing when she was pretending. Hell, her fake personality was almost in his strike zone.

"Our leader has been known to step outside the boundaries of common sense as well. It would be poor of us to judge you harshly for something we ourselves struggle with." Lie Ren stated firmly.

Nora Valkyrie caught on to what he was hinting at. "You two are fine as long as you pledge your allegiance to the Firefox ship. Our fearless leader is destined to be partnered with his partner for eternity!"

Ren was speaking before Mercury had the chance to ask what the hell she was talking about. "I'm still not sure about that name. I believe I mentioned that Yang's semblance has something to do with fire. From what I remember Cinder also uses fire... "

"Nananana! I'm not listening!" The girl slammed her hands flat over her ears and tried to drown her partner out. The realization of the stupidity that was this conversation made him want to slam his head into the wall behind him.

"I'm pretty sure you don't have to worry about that. I've never seen Cinder in a serious relationship," It looked like Emerald had caught on before he did. A minor detail which nonetheless irritated Mercury. He drowned his irritation by wolfing down the remaining noodles of his ramen and then bringing the bowl to his lips to finish the broth. Damn shame he'd have to kill someone who could cook like this.

Nora appeared receptive to Emerald's assurance. "Hmmm… so she's more likely to use him for a pump and dump?"

Mercury received what should have been a needless reminder that broth was not meant to go down one's windpipe. His choking as his body tried to force the liquid back up his throat before it reached his lungs was in good company with the rest of the reactions being shown. Blondie was busy laughing, Red was preoccupied being embarrassed, and the other two were distracted either by scolding or being scolded.

A lucky break if Mercury ever had one. They missed the anger that flashed across Em's face when she said it. That girl's loyalty to Cinder was religious. All Cinder gave Mercury was a life where he could have a good time. That was their unspoken agreement and he had no problems with it. Emerald was saved from starvation by Cinder, making her more of a zealot than anything else. The way Valkyrie had spoken was like taking her god's name in vain. Mercury shot her a covert look with a message he knew she'd hear.

 _Get it together Em._

She did. Her devotion to Cinder could cause problems. Since she knew that she could use that same motivation to make sure it wasn't an issue once she realized it. He couldn't tell if her thought process was overly simple or pointlessly complex.

Things winded down quick enough after that. A scroll message had Red and Yellow excusing themselves for the evening. When the remaining four of them merged into the kitchenette Cinder and Pyrrha were embroiled in a war of words. It looked to Mercury like she'd been intentionally trying to drive up the spartan's jealousy in a way that Uzumaki wouldn't notice. She hadn't mentioned anything that would explain why she was doing that. Again Mercury found himself not caring.

It took him under an hour to worm his way into a group of friends playing the modest fool. No one had caught him, no one had noticed. In a way, it was something like a game. Whyever Cinder did what she did wasn't his concern. He was having fun proving that he could easily gain the trust of people who under no circumstance should trust him. That was good enough for him.

* * *

Sky was no stranger to regrets. Since he'd come to Beacon he'd tallied what he hoped would be the biggest regret he'd have in his entire life. If he ever did something that trumped abandoning his leader to death he had resolved that his life ended there.

He was serious too.

Plenty of people would have found such grim resolve excessive or unhealthy. Having lived with it for awhile Sky felt qualified to tell those people they were absolutely right. His body hurt almost every hour of every day. He'd stopped playing games on his scroll so that he could have more time to train. He'd stopped all his hobbies so that he'd have more time to train. He was sacrificing everything he had, everything he was to the bonfire of his ambition. What was his ambition?

To never feel so worthless again.

Chasing one thing with everything he had was not helping him sustain a healthy mental state. Sleep often came when his training had forced him into collapse. He often forgot what time it was, sometimes even forgetting what day it was. Dove was concerned about him, frequently asking him to slow down. He never listened. He was glad he never listened too because he felt himself getting stronger. If he became strong enough he'd never have to feel useless again. That was the plan.

Changing to a more serious approach in life had granted him a new perspective. He'd developed his sense for when he was about to add another regret to the list so he could do whatever was necessary to not do whatever was giving him misgivings. Now was one of those times. "I would like to voice that this is a terrible idea and there's a good chance that some of us die."

"Noted," Cardin replied in a low whisper. "Same way it was noted the past five times you said it. I told you I owe Yang a solid for saving my life. If you don't wanna be here-"

"I _don't_ want to be here. The only reason I am here is because I think there's less of a chance one of you bites a literal bullet if I am."

"You got our eternal gratitude and all that crap. Now shut the fuck up before one of them dog-eared assholes hears us." Russel hissed after peering over the top of the building's roof.

The four of them were positioned atop a roof overlooking a White Fang compound. The story of why they were doing something so cataclysmically stupid was appropriately moronic itself. RWBY's leader had approached Cardin that morning and asked for his help. Hey, that didn't sound so bad. Right? Wrong.

What did the fifteen-year-old girl need help with? Apparently, her teammate had a sickness and the only cure was raiding a White Fang compound. The actual explanation was more along the lines of Ruby's teammate feeling like not enough was being done by the Vale Police Department to stop the White Fang. The genius solutions? Gather up a bunch of first-year huntsmen in training and do it yourself!

The one thing that could have salvaged an idea as terrible as this was that there was a first year who had mission experience. Said first-year also happened to be the ridiculously strong leader of a ridiculously strong team. If anyone was going to lead a vigilante force into combat with the White Fang then it would be that first year — the only one remotely qualified to do anything of the sort. Right? Wrong!

You see, Ruby's teammate had an 'awkward' experience where Naruto had been her impromptu leader and she had decided it was a fantastic idea to be insubordinate to the point of needing rescue. Sky knew this because he was in the room for the aftermath of the conversation. He still believed that the only mistake Naruto might have made was being willing to hurt himself for someone who clearly didn't appreciate the sacrifice. So because of this 'awkward' experience as Ruby put it, she didn't feel like Naruto would be willing to take Blake out into the field.

" _That makes sense. If she knows where the White Fang are why don't you have her tell Naruto? If he's not willing to trust her after what she did then maybe he'd be willing to take his own team. If she wants them to be dealt with and doesn't trust the adults to do it that's the best way to go about it."_ Had been his response. Naruto was more experienced, stronger, and had proven himself by getting Blake out of the docks alive when she decided the most tactically advantageous place to be was surrounded by enemies giving a speech about faunus dignity.

Put that on your resume and your well would never run dry.

" _There are some things you have to see through yourself."_ And with that flawless non-logic Cardin had agreed to volunteer his service. His leader wasn't enough of a prick to volunteer their services, only his. Of course, Russel wouldn't have his partner go without him. Obviously, Dove didn't want to let half his team go alone.

And that's how Sky found himself roped into something he had no desire to do. On a scale of one to ten, his enthusiasm was clocking in at a miraculous negative five. The only thing preventing it from going any lower was the mission goal.

Calling this a raid wasn't entirely factual. RWBY was going to infiltrate a White Fang happening. Through some black magic Sky was entirely disinterested in, Blake had found out that there was an event going on for new faunus recruits. It wasn't a recruiting event, she made that clear on their way over. Something was happening with those who were freshly recruited tonight. All they were here to do was listen to what was going on, gather what information they could, then bring it back to Beacon and give it to the headmaster.

RWBY had gone in thirty minutes ago and CRDL was on standby in case anything went wrong. Ideally, that wouldn't be the case — RWBY would come out after the gathering was over and they'd all head back to Beacon safe and sound. The silence they heard was a good thing. Lack of noise loud enough to reach them meant lack of gunfire. With all the gun based weapons on that team, the first thing he'd hear if something went wrong was the sound of bullets being fired.

 _*BANG! BANG!*_

 _I hate my life._

* * *

 ** _Poor Sky wants to train and better himself and he gets pulled into this crap. RWBY decided to involve CRDL because I don't think Ruby would be reckless enough to investigate the White Fang without backup in this story like she did in canon. She does have a thought process that Sky doesn't quite understand as to why she isn't involving Naruto, meaning this isn't pure Ruby bashing. Naruto told her she needed to decide what risks she was willing to take herself and what risks she was willing to let her team undergo. Ruby thinks Naruto would not risk his team for something like the White Fang and she's right._**

 ** _Would he go deal with them by himself? Absolutely. I don't see him risking his team in such a way when he hasn't had the time to go over proper fighting formations and safety with them. Naruto has a higher bar set when it comes to being combat ready. I don't think he'd use something as high pressure as a terrorist rally as a means to give his team field experience either. That boils down to a Naruto that would not participate in this mission._**

 ** _Sky is pro-Naruto. Ren mentioned in this chapter that 'his leader ignored common sense' in reference to post-docks. Different characters have different reactions to the same information. Naruto screws up, Blake screws up, Ruby screws up, everyone screws up. I've seen some people think that immortal Naruto means perfect Naruto. Negatory on that one. Hope you all are having a wonderful day and I apologize once more for the delay. Prepping for Alaska is an involved process._**


	33. In the Dark of the Night

_**Greetings and salutations!**_

 _ **Rapidfire, go!**_

 _ **Where have you been? Driving to Alaska and getting settled in.**_

 _ **Is the fic dead? Not yet.**_

 ** _Are regular releases back? Not sure._**

 ** _Who is your least favorite character? Blake. I'm sure that's a real shocker._**

 ** _Why haven't you stopped writing this piece of shit story? Not quite sure. I'll let you know when I answer that myself._**

 ** _I present to you chapter 31 of An Old Fox's New Trick. _**

* * *

**Chapter 31**

 **In the Dark of the Night**

A wall of ice erupted into existence, absorbing the hail of bullets that were unloaded into it. The remaining gunfire whistled gaily over their heads as it sailed above the man high wall. It came dangerously close to hitting Yang's head, or more importantly her hair.

"That was a little low there Weiss! We're not all as short as you." Yang barked at the frozen barrier's creator.

"I'm almost out of ice dust as it is! I've no intention of exacerbating the issue so you can avoid ducking."

Yang bit her lip silently. Blake and Sun had needed to make an exit in a warehouse filled end to end with White Fang. Said escape was only managed because of a cord of rope Ruby had brought with them as part of her plan and a colossal flume of ice to stop any bullets from turning the two of them into Mistralian cheese. Weiss was better with her ice dust than any other and it looked like she was pitifully low on it.

"Left!" Ruby called out as she took a sharp left, five of them following close behind. A quick glance towards the barrier Weiss had made showed some of the Fang were almost finished climbing over it.

It wasn't exactly like a movie either. The heroes running away from the enemies as they try to escape was a tried and true blockbuster. What wasn't explained even half as well was the constant stream of reinforcements cutting off every avenue of escape you tried for. Six White Fang barred their escape through the alley they'd been sprinting through. Boxed in between buildings in an alleyway no more than three people wide they had no choice but to face the gunfire head on.

Weiss greeted them with a wall of ice even shorter than the last. Yang slammed her back into it, crouching low enough to avoid the gunfire that peppered into the wall and flew overhead. Weiss and Blake flanked her on either side with Ruby, Sun, and Neptune lying prone behind them. The terrorists kept up a slow and consistent barrage of bullets to pin them behind their cover.

"We gotta move!" Sun shouted from behind her. Yang grimaced as two more bullets impacted the wall. Nobody argued the point because they all knew there were only a few seconds before the Fang behind them caught up.

 _This kinda blows._ Yang thought as another bullet sailed directly over her head as she tried to ready herself to vault over Weiss' wall. They had about ten seconds before the rest of the Fang caught up to them from behind. Her assessment of the situation was pretty spot on.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. RWBY had gone through a tumultuous debate on how to handle the particular problem of Blake and the White Fang. Their rambunctious kitty had wanted nothing more than to charge in by herself and get all the information she could. Yang wanted to say that behavior of her partner surprised her, except it didn't.

It was a back and forth argument between RWY and their B to push the boundaries of what they could do while trying not to get killed. Through knowledge of old White Fang meeting spots, Blake had found one of their hideaways and wanted to investigate. Blake had wanted to storm in there by herself — a plan that was quickly nixed by the three of them. They wanted to go as four — a plan that was demolished with equal haste by Blake who reminded them their lack of defining faunus characteristics would likely get them stopped at the door.

Blake didn't want to risk failure, Ruby didn't want to risk danger. With the goal of invading a White Fang rally, those were two very mutually exclusive goals. There was going to be plenty of risks no matter what they did. They'd expected around a hundred terrorists to be grouped up at this happening. At that point, you had to accept that being outnumbered was a risk in itself. Didn't matter how weak your enemy was if they outnumbered you ten to one, something could go wrong even if it shouldn't.

As it turned out they were a _little_ off in their estimations. Instead of a hundred White Fang, the baddies had outdone themselves and managed to round up a force that easily quintupled that. The basic plan of sneaking on top of the roof of the warehouse in case Blake and Sun needed backup was made all the more complicated by the almost constant patrol of guards. They'd managed, if only just.

Yang gestured silently to Blake, fearing that the faunus might somehow hear her over the concussive force of their weapons. Her partner nodded back and Yang tensed, readying herself as everyone but Blake moved as far right as they could squeeze themselves. They didn't have time to sit here and wait for the Fang chasing behind them to pincer them.

Blake made a clone that peeked its head out from cover. The diversion had the desired effect and drew the Fang's fire straight towards it, their bullets would pass harmlessly through the intangible image. For now, the Fang didn't know that. RWBY and co took the opportunity without sparing a fraction of a second.

Yang and Weiss charged forward with as low a posture as they could manage. Crescent Rose slammed atop the ice wall as Ruby turned it into her perch. The White Fang's quickly changed targets from the clone to the two of them.

 _Not quick enough._ Yang bared a feral grin.

Ruby, Blake, Sun, and Neptune unloaded on the Fang who were almost completely in the open at this point. Two of the six went down instantly, clutching bloody wounds in the exact same place on their shoulder. Yang's grin turned to a grimace as she recognized Ruby's handiwork. Her sister was a damn good marksman… a marksman that was used to firing at grimm or other students who had their aura. Ruby had done her best to go for a debilitating non-lethal injury, but Crescent Rose was not a small caliber rifle.

It was obvious the two didn't have aura, though Yang supposed that made sense. That was what the whole point of this event had been for the Fang. They had caught them unlocking the aura of their new recruits. Sun and Blake already having their aura unlocked was enough to oust them, leading to their current state of affairs.

With the four remaining White Fang behind cover RBSN vaulted over the ice wall. They ran and fired at the same time, pinning the Fang and preventing any return fire. Yang and Weiss stayed low as they closed the distance between them and the four gunners. It wasn't time to fire shots of her own. The two of them had to bring this fight up close and personal so they could blow past these goons as quickly as possible.

And that's what they did. Rounding the corner without a second's hesitation Yang slugged the first guy with a substantial amount of restraint. The man still crumbled to the ground like he'd been hit by a bus. Weiss wasn't specialized in low damage knockouts on civilians, not that it stopped her. She took a huge step in and thrust her rapier into the trigger of the gun. One twist of Myrtenaster sent the weapon skidding across the asphalt. One two of its pommel on the woman's head laid her unconscious on the ground.

The two remaining faunus weren't sitting around doing nothing while Yang and Weiss flattened their comrades. The two White Fang had already trained their guns on the two of them. Yang summoned all the aura she could and pushed towards them as they fired. _This is gonna smart._

The first bullet bounced harmlessly off her aura without any problem. The second bullet got the exact same treatment. The third bullet followed suit, with the exception that it pushed an extra half inch towards her physical body. The fourth bullet took that distance even closer. The fifth bullet Yang could feel on her skin before her aura barely managed to deflect it away. He didn't get a chance for a sixth bullet before Yang decked him flat.

 _Not being able to shoot these people sucks._ Yang whined as she spared a moment to rub her stomach. It had reflexively pulled itself taut at the threat of a bullet ricocheting around her lower intestines. They had aura and these schmucks didn't. That detail made them easier to beat, something that was both a blessing and a curse. They were so easy to beat that if she unloaded on any one of them they'd die without a second thought. Such was the barrier between civilians and huntresses.

Yang hadn't looked over to see if Weiss had dealt with the other Fang because she trusted her to do it. She shared a sideways glance with the heiress and traded victorious smirks. That was the extent of their celebration before the other four were on their heels.

"Big wall, Weiss!" Ruby's frantic tone had the two of them starting into a running gait on the spot.

"I spent nearly all my ice dust evacuating the two of them," Weiss jabbed her pointer and middle finger pointedly at Sun and Blake. "I don't have much left to be frivolously throwing arou-"

"Weiss, can it and make the wall!" Yang cut off her tirade. A glance over her shoulder as the six of them sprinted made her think the ground itself was moving.

The White Fang filled the alleyway wall to wall, their numbers continuously increasing as they turned the corner. Yang couldn't make out any guns on the forerunners, a small positive. It would be almost impossible to fight that many civilians without killing them.

All it took for Weiss to join the group consensus was a brief observation of what pursues them. She spun and let her momentum carry her a few extra inches as she skidded across the ground as she began to manipulate the remaining dust in Myrtenaster. There was only fifty feet of separation left between them.

"We probably wanna start running again," Sun said a bit rigidly.

"I like that plan, let's go with that." Neptune's agreement was immediate.

As if it were a rebuttal to their panic Weiss' wall sprung forth from nothingness, filling the entire alleyway and cutting them off from the approaching Fang entirely. It stood ten feet tall and without imperfection. Yang had to hand it to the girl, she was pretty damn good at what she did.

"Although that will buy us some time I advise we keep moving." Weiss brushed a bead of sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand.

That suggestion garnered no disagreement. Not the most impressive feat all things considered. If they all could just mow the Fang down and call it a day it would have been a walk in the park. She couldn't bring herself to do it.

From their vantage point above the warehouse, they had heard Torchwick tell the faunus there that Vale didn't have their interests at heart. She'd watched many of them defend the huntsmen and huntresses of Beacon against his rhetoric. She'd seen the fear they had for their lives when Torchwick told them Vale would be collaborating with Atlas for the defense of the upcoming festival. It was crystal clear how many of them were there because they were scared of Atlas — the kingdom with the absolute worst track record towards faunus — and the presence of their giant warships in the sky.

And Roman Torchwick had exploited the hell out of it.

Yang banished the thoughts from her mind. _Keep your head in the game, me._ She focused herself as they quickly and quietly made their way through the labyrinth of warehouses. Weiss had bought them anonymity with that last wall and they all wanted to stretch that out as far as it could go.

The rally was in some sort of abandoned industrial district. It was probably a failed project by some Schnee class gazillionaire. Row after row of simple warehouses of varying sizes set up like cookie-cutter houses in some suburb. A huge man-made island beneath an overpass with only one solid road leading into it. It was a lucky break for them it hadn't been guarded.

It was a small ways off the main Vale highway and was actually about a hundred feet below it as well. Yang's best guess put them about a mile away from the exit, presently synonymous with salvation.

A mile sounded really easy on paper. Four laps around a standard track? Pshhh! Of course, it wasn't as simple as a gym class. Not even in the same stratosphere. The pace Ruby set for the six of them required a patience beyond fathoming to simply be called slow.

The compound was immense and left a lot of ground to be covered. On Blake's advice, Ruby had them take a hard right away from the exit. The detour put them a good distance away from Weiss' wall. With any luck, all the search efforts would be focused on that area of the district.

There was one thing she hadn't spared much of a thought for. "Do you think Cardinal is okay?" Ruby asked in a tiny whisper. They'd all been as quiet as possible to avoid any sort of ridiculous faunus hearing screwing them over.

"They'll be fine," Yang said with ease.

"You don't know that."

"Most of the White Fang here don't even have their aura unlocked," Yang reminded her as she stepped over a plastic bottle that looked particularly crunchy. "The only way they're hurting CRDL is with guns."

"We would have heard it if they'd been captured or engaged." Weiss finished her thought.

"Yup!"

"Quiet!" Her kitty partner hissed at her.

"Sheesh…" Yang complained under her breath. Blake wasn't known for overflowing with warm affection, but that was colder than usual. What Yang didn't realize was that her partner had noticed something she hadn't.

Hearing was a bit of a bitch. Your ears could hear a lot further than you'd normally give them credit for. The thing was that no matter how disciplined you were, and she wasn't all that disciplined in the first place, you could find your ears switching their zone of focus from long range to close range if you weren't careful. The brain will passively focus your ears on wherever it expects sound to come from unless you're paying close attention to it.

Cat ears helped too.

While Yang didn't hear or even realize what had set Blake off like that, she did recognize the sound that came next. The signature beeping almost arcade-like tone a radio made after you'd released your finger from the button.

"Aww shit," Yang swore.

Blake went from zero to a hundred without an interim as she bolted towards the source of the noise. Neptune and Sun hadn't realized what was going on and were predictably startled. They caught on pretty quick when the rest of RWBY chased after their fast feline and followed suit.

As soon as Yang reached the alley between two warehouses that Blake had turned into she saw a group of five White Fang sprinting as fast as they could away from her. Yang was five seconds off while her partner was hot on their literal tails. It was a real crappy situation for the good guys as they forked into two separate groups at the end of the alley.

They didn't have time to hunt down anyone. Right now they were the ones who were being hunted. RWBY and co needed to knock those scouts out and then beat feet anywhere that wasn't here. If they made a break for it and ignored the Fang that were running from Blake like she was a cat out of hell they could just turn around and tail them, burning any hope they had of avoiding combat.

Ruby got the memo, blasting past Yang and everyone else with her semblance to catch up with Blake. Bright red petals blazed a trail forward. Blake banked towards the left with a powerful leap to stop and restart her momentum. The flurry of rose petals that was Ruby hugged the left warehouse before veering right. It was like watching a big truck trying to get as much room as possible to make a turn.

Yang was already running as fast as she could when she heard a series of thuds followed by one much louder impact and a yelp from Ruby. Her eyes flared red as she pushed herself faster, the asphalt forming spiderweb cracks from the heavy blows of her feet.

"Fucking hell," Yang her a voice not unfamiliar to her swear. "Run into my leader next time, will ya? His fat ass could probably tank a squirt like you doing her best rendition of a speeding bullet."

A more familiar voice scoffed. "These guns are pure muscle, Russ. Drink your milk and maybe you'll grow up big and strong like me."

Yang had rounded the corner in time to see Russel Thrush deliver his leader a glare that defined petulance. "Don't go getting a big head cus Naruto's workout made all your fat burn away. It'd just make that walnut brain of yours look smaller by relativity."

"Psssst," Cardin 'whispered' to Dove loud enough that everyone could hear. "That thing used a four syllable word and didn't swear. That's way too smart to be our village idiot. I think one of the White Fang bastards killed Russ and took his place."

Russel snarled at his partner. Watching the verbal vigor that Russell and Cardin went at it with was impressive enough for all of them to forget what was going on. It was enough for their eyes to gloss over the bodies of the three knocked out White Fang at their feet as well. Well, all save two. "If I might pose a suggestion; let us leave?"

"Seconded," Sky agreed with his teammate wearily. "I don't know how much time we've got before our bad luck catches up with us. Personally, I'm not interested in finding out either."

The pattering of footsteps abounding like a distant rainstorm cast the deciding vote to finalize Dove's initiative. Blake appearing — and her partner was stealthy enough there was no other word that described it — beside her with a body over each shoulder delivered two loud accents to his point as she let each body fall to the floor with a dull thunk one right after the other.

"Flip their bodies around," Blake ordered sharply. CRDL looked at her like she was speaking a foreign language until she dragged one of the three CRDL had knocked out and flipped the position of their heads to match the two bodies Blake had thrown down.

"Clever," Neptune remarked as he grabbed the second unconscious faunus while Blake worked on the third. It took Yang a second to realize what they were doing.

"Ohhhhhhhh," Realization dawned on Russel. "You want to make them think we blew past these schmucks."

"Nothing gets past you, Russ." Cardin sighed as he hurriedly hammered a few footsteps leading in the same direction. Russel scowled while adding a few footsteps of his own onto the ground as well.

Yang and the rest joined in for the few seconds they had while Neptune and Blake positioned the unconscious bodies. She couldn't tell if their steps were leaving any noticeable tracks or not. Frankly, they didn't have the time either.

"All aboard the Get Us the Hell Out of Here Express." Yang pulled at an imaginary locomotive whistle. The footsteps they'd heard were no longer as distant and were quickly approaching the volume of monsoon rain. That sound was the last call for the Get Us the Hell Out of Here Express.

It had a lot of passengers.

* * *

 _I'm beginning to think I slept with Lady Luck's sister._ Roman rationalized his present suffering to the best of his ability. _She caught me in bed with her sister, threw a hissy fit, and everything in my life since has been the spiteful revenge of a jilted lover._ Roman nodded to himself. _Getting roped in with Cinder, becoming a glorified herding dog for these animals, Uzumaki… it all makes sense!_

"Hey Neo. Any chance you're Lady Luck's sister?"

The bubblegum-brunette's response was a stare that clearly asked the question 'Are you retarded?'. Roman was almost to the point where he was willing to answer yes to that question. Cinder, animals, Naruto — when he added all that up it was damn impossible saying he was put together properly in the upstairs area. Now that he thought about it, there was another qualifier missing from his brilliant theory.

"You haven't jumped me in my sleep, have you?" Roman's desire to close all ends of his hypothesis earned him a stilettoed boot in the back of his leg that forced him to kneel. "Alright, ouch! It was a joke."

Neo looked unimpressed.

Roman stood up and straightened himself out, giving a cautionary glance to Neo to make sure she wasn't going to put him back on the ground again. The crime boss decided that it was time to redirect her focus. "Any sign of Uzumaki?"

Now, this had become a tried and true method of redirecting his diminutive partner's attention. People didn't beat Neo in a fight. Ever. Take both of Cinder's brats and throw 'em against Neo and any bookie worth his salt wouldn't even take bets. Yet that blond bastard didn't just beat them, oh no. He fucked around with them the same way that Neo fucked around with street kids dumb enough not to know who she was.

Roman was 'loyal' to Cinder in a sense — huge air quotes necessary for the usage of that term. She was one of the few in Remnant who could beat the two them when they teamed up. What made her the worst was that the flaming psychopath was the only one of those few who had proven capable of finding them. When Cinder had first found the two of them it had been in their most secure of safehouses. She could have caught him a hundred other places, yet she chose that one.

Now wasn't that just the most shameless cock waving you'd ever seen?

He'd considered taking Neo and exiting stage left when Cinder first 'offered' him a job — even larger air quotes needed for that one. It was pretty obvious that her's was the job offer that included a comprehensive benefits package should he not accept. Specifically, a complimentary cremation service that had the slight detriment of being performed while he was still alive. Roman was willing to give up his empire in Vale and set up somewhere else if it kept them out of Cinder's hands.

He'd accepted. Roman knew that bitch would find them no matter what corner of the earth they went to if there was the slightest rumor to track him down with. His choice was between working with Cinder and total anonymous poverty. That was already too bitter a pill to swallow for himself alone. Dragging Neo to the gutters alongside him?

No. He'd work with Cinder to keep the status quo… for now.

In response to his previous question, Neo shook her head. Roman heaved a sigh of relief heavy enough to flatten a small tree. _Maybe Lady Luck and I can reconcile yet._

Cinder had pitched him on a pretty simple plan — at least his part in it was. Steal some dust. Check. Recruit a ton of White Fang. Check. The wrinkle came in riling the animals up. That was the third box to fill on Cinder's checklist for him. Getting the faunus to see red was proving to be a struggle.

The problem lay in abundance. It often did in a thief's life. They'd introduced too many new animals to the pen and it had affected the group mentality. Roman had seeded Adam's mindless drones bent on destruction and war into the recruits to try and influence the pack to be more aggressive. Cinder wanted zealots with righteous fury, not moralizing citizens practicing their civic virtue.

After his repeated showings of incompetence in convincing the passive new blood to radicalize Cinder was forced to do it herself. Upon her instructions, Roman fed the White Fang a line; "Vale will turn over the defense of its citizens to Atlas. Your leaders will trust your greatest oppressors with your defense."

He'd delivered that line tonight to a crowd best described as skeptical. Roman didn't care, he'd done what was asked of him. That ball was in Cinder's court now. Right where he wanted it.

Cinder was stupid enough to think he was actually incompetent. The broad believed he couldn't convince the animals to heel and attack on command. Roman had talked himself underneath the skirt of a voluptuous nun ten years into her vows. After he'd done that it took five minutes before she was begging him to take a closer look at her holy passage. Training some mutts to fetch was well within his skill set.

"Have those idiots caught the kids?"

Neo shook her head with a smile. Roman soon had one to match.

"Good."

These weren't White Fang guerillas gathered here tonight. These were pissed off civilians who were tired of being treated like animals. Let 'em run around chasing after some huntsmen who could turn them from dogs and cats to corpses in a snap would have enough of them reconsidering their life choices. These meddling kids could not have come at a worse time for Cinder.

He was betting Lady Luck had sent them because she thought it was the same for him.

"You think she'd buy it took us this long to catch them?"

Neo held her hand flat and wiggled it a bit.

"That's what I thought too… call it here?"

Neo nodded.

"Then let's get this show on the road," Roman extended his hand palm up and bowed his head. "M'lady."

Neo elbowed him in the ribs so hard his aura flared.

"Such a cruel mistress!" Roman cried out, biting back his laughter.

Neo gave him a mischievous wink and a grin.

"Now I don't need to- actually, I _do_ need to remind you not to kill any of the twerps."

Neo held out her thumb and forefinger with an inch of space between them.

"No." Roman deadpanned.

Neo shrunk the distance between her fingers so there was just the faintest hint of space between them.

"No. How do you kill someone 'only a little' anyways?" Roman asked, "No, I don't want you to show me."

Neo pouted.

"You know where they are?"

Pink and brown eyes rolled at him.

"Can never be too careful. Remember to make it convincing. You know the endgame."

A second eye roll was accompanied by a soundless sigh as she placed her hand on his white jacket. Roman felt a familiar force tug on him. Neo lifted a single foot off the ground. That point of no return reminded him of something he'd almost forgotten.

"Hold it!" Roman shouted in a bit of a panic. The shock from his sudden shout had Neo tripping over herself. His partner's eyes screamed murder in two different colors as she glowered at him as she balanced on one booted foot.

"Sorry about that," Roman apologized glibly. Neo did not look amused. "A small order of business that need be attended. To be fair, you almost forgot too."

Neo looked at him like he was drunk. A second later her mouth formed an O shape and she rapped her head with her knuckles and stuck her tongue out.

"When a woman makes a mistake it's called being ditzy. When a man makes a mistake it's called being an idiot." Roman parroted the motto she'd preached to him for years.

Neo nodded her head in satisfaction.

"What a world," Roman groused. "Now keep it down while I'm on the phone."

She fixed him with the flattest of glares. Roman had to stop himself from busting a gut on the spot. _That one never gets old._

He withdrew a scroll from his pocket — not his of course — and dialed. It took only one ring before there was an answer on the other side. "Hello?" Roman asked. The person on the other end of the line responded. "I was driving on the overpass over the old warehouse district when I could swear I saw something..."

* * *

 _This could have gone worse._ Ruby consoled herself. _Nobody is hurt, we know what they want. Everything is fine… Okay, maybe fine is a stretch._ She stood by her first statement though! Things _could_ be worse. Ruby wasn't sure how much distance was between being chased by hundreds of terrorists and rock bottom, but there had to be a little wiggle room. _At least we have our health!... for now._

They were in a pickle. Moving as ten made stealth a challenge. Ruby didn't dare split them up out of fear of Roman and his little girl of a partner. It was kinda cool that someone so short was stronger than Torchwick — at least according to Naruto. _Not that I'm short or anything!_ Ruby defended herself against herself.

They were being cornered into a smaller and smaller sectors of the compound. The entire area was surrounded by a tall barbed fence. Obviously, it wasn't the fence that was stopping the best team in Beacon. The entire district was built on a man-made land mass. That meant there wasn't any way out other than the highway exit up to the overpass.

Ruby had planned for things to go this bad. She hadn't expected them to, but she did plan for it. The plan was to swim two miles to the next area and take the exit up to the overpass there. Vale had to conserve space in their walls so building the roads over industrial or housing zones was common enough to have them reliably seeded. If Ruby had it her way they would have cut through a section of the fence and beelined it for the sea.

Torchwick almost definitely had the largely abandoned entrance to the overpass guarded by a bulk of their forces. That was the only reason Ruby could think of that so few were pursuing them. There'd been at least five hundred White Fang in that warehouse when Blake and Sun snuck into it! Not to mention all those patrolling around the compound the four of them could see from the roof! Ruby was trying so hard to listen to Naruto's lessons about leading that she stopped paying attention to the most fundamental rule of being in the field.

Pay attention to your surroundings.

She was in the second row of their marching — or in this case running formation. The thought that Yang and Blake might miss something in the lead didn't even cross her mind. She wasn't looking for the cane that jutted out and clotheslined her.

The sight of Ruby's legs swinging into the air told the middle and back rows that they were under attack. The sharp crack of Ruby's head against the pavement did the same for the front. And in case any of them were hard of hearing or somehow blind the explosive shot fired into the air like a firework served as a signal for even the most unobservant.

Dizzy as she was from the unexpected tumble, Ruby had a feeling it wasn't meant to alert her friends.

"I wish I could say it was good to see you again Red, I really do." A voice so cocky and familiar snarked at her from the alley they had just passed.

Ruby saw Torchwick standing there. Both of his hands held onto his cane as he leaned over to get a closer look at her. He was literally looking down on her as she lay sprawled helplessly on the ground. He didn't have time to look for long.

"You bastard!" Ruby could make out her sister's voice. It sounded far away even though she was right next to her. Yang's red eyes were filled with rage as she punched forward.

The sound of Ember Celica firing in her ears was Ruby's wake up call. The world refocused around her as Blake, Yang, and Cardin unloaded their weapons into the alley. Through the sound of the gunfire, she could hear the shattering of glass.

And then Torchwick was no more. Not as in dead, he disappeared.

The only sounds were their ragged breaths accompanied by metal casings rolling around on the asphalt. Yang was offering her a hand up but Cardin grabbed her by the scruff of her cloak and stood her up before she could take it.

Ruby could tell Yang wanted to let him have it. She interjected before her sister had the chance. "Anyone see Torchwick?"

"He vanished," Blake answered quickly. "It's his partner's semblance. She can teleport herself and anyone she's in physical contact with."

Ruby and the rest of her team already knew that because Blake had told them. It was good to recap for the other six. "Any weaknesses?" Sky asked her.

"She can't use it consecutively. I'm not sure if further distances or taking a partner increases that usage gap or not."

Sky nodded as they all fell back into marching formation. "What's the play?" Russel asked.

"They're somewhere around us right now. If we make our way to the main exit and force a hole through their guards we can make it out."

"Unless your frost queen intends to freeze them all in place I'm not a big fan of running into fuck knows how many people with guns in a wide open space." Sky seethed.

"I'm out of ice dust," Weiss informed him.

"Fucking swell," Sky's irateness continued. "Unless you're willing to burn the Fang to death I vote we swim our way out. I'm not letting my team facetank fully automatic weapons."

Ruby was going to say something to calm him down. Cardin beat her to the punch and did the exact opposite. "It's not your team Sky. It's mine. I call the shots and I say we stick with Ruby."

"I don't give a shit!" Sky swore. "You being the leader doesn't make this any less my team. I'm here to make sure you morons don't try and play hero any more than you already have. Busting through the front is going to get us all killed! Don't you see that?!"

Ruby had always seen Sky as the passive member of CRDL. He'd been quiet and focused on his own thing every time she'd ever seen him. Right now he looked ready to beat Cardin unconscious and drag his limp body to safety.

"Dude, Neptune can't swim." Sun stepped in between the two and tried to defuse the situation.

"That's why we can't go by water," Ruby spoke for herself, forcing her way into the conversation.

"If he can't swim then let's knock him out and throw him on one of our backs. Chance of him waking up and thrashing in the water if Blondie knocks him out are way less than the chance of us-"

"You're not knocking my friend out." Sun interrupted, the threat clear in his voice.

"I damn well am if it gets my team out of here alive." Sky reached for his halberd held in his back holster.

"Stop it!" Ruby shouted. She didn't know if they listened because she was the leader, because of the force of her usually tiny voice, or whatever other reason, but they did. The two of them shut up and looked at her.

"It's too late to swim. They know we're here and Torchwick will blow us out of the water the second we hit it and can't fight back, plus the White Fang that are definitely coming to meet him here because we've spent the past minute bickering! We're not taking the front because it's the easy way, it's the _only_ way."

Sun had the good grace to shuffle awkwardly and take a step away from the CRDL member. Sky had no such sensibility. He glared Ruby down with the blatant desire to squeeze her head and pop it off her shoulders.

He didn't dismiss the desire, she could tell, he only tabled it to be addressed at a later date. Ruby knew she'd be dealing with his wrath for a long time coming. "

"The front it is." Sky grunted.

Ruby nodded her gratitude with a small smile. He didn't return it. "Yang and Blake in front, we're keeping the order the same. Blake you'll need to take everyone out with non-lethal shots whenever possible. The rest of our guns are too high caliber for civilians." She'd learned that lesson earlier…

Blake nodded and they were off. The sounds of White Fang hot on their trail did not bode well for them. It was a bad situation they were in and Ruby knew it.

And it was her job to get them out of it.

* * *

Roman wanted to punch something, annoying Beacon children at the top of his personal list of punchables. A warmth far past familiar at his side stymied his more homicidal tendencies.

"How did you managed to delay the animals this long? Kids have been down there yammering like they're on the high school debate team."

Neo flipped her hair like some sort of runway model. Her bubblegum-brunette locks turned black.

"Gave 'em a glimpse of someone turning the corner. Gotta respect the classics," Neo giggled silently. "Still, chasing you down when I threw up a flare? How dumb are they?"

Neo sighed, shrugged, and held out her open palms toward the sky in exasperation.

"Amateurs. What can you do? You think the brats are ready for a second helping?"

Neo nodded excitedly.

"You can handle this one. Meet me back here after you nicked one of them."

Neo clapped with giddy joy. She lifted her foot up before pausing. Hesitantly she lowered her foot back down to the ground before giving Roman the biggest sad eyes she could manage. The girl looked like a kicked puppy, something made all the more impressive by the reality she was more likely to be kicking a puppy.

She held out her thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart.

"Damnit Neo! Not even a micron dead!"

Neo huffed and stomped her foot on the ground, disappearing in a shattering of glass. Roman snaked his hand under his bowler cap and scratched his head. With his spare hand, he withdrew a cigar from his breast pocket. Withdrawing his hand from underneath his bowler he reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a matchbook.

"Lighters are for filthy philistines," Roman said to the air. It was more a means of venting than conveying any information. He'd tragically been known to use a lighter when needs must.

It was a rough night for the two of them. Here he was trying to play both sides of the fence. He expected two intense interrogations for tonight and they had to make sure they put on a convincing enough show to convince both sides of the aisle that he was playing for them. Either way, he'd be lying; Roman Torchwick only ever played for one side.

His own.

* * *

 _Goddamned cocksucking dumbass motherfucking Cardin._ Sky swore profusely inside his own mind as he shoulder checked a grunt that had tried to ambush them from an alley. The bastard waited in cover as the leads ran past and tried to ambush what he thought would be the weaker center of their caravan. The ambusher was right, not that it mattered.

Sky was a huntsman. He wasn't.

A quick aura block to break the swing of the Fang's wooden plank into a shoulder bash was all Sky needed to knock his would-be attacker into the wall of a warehouse and knock him out. It was so easy it reminded him why Ruby didn't want to kill these assholes. They weren't White Fang, they were basically civilians.

He and the rest of Cardinal hadn't heard what was being said at the little pow-wow the White Fang were having. They must have been planning an adoption drive for abandoned cats to warrant the kiddy gloves Ruby was asking them to wear. That or their mission leader was a hopelessly idealistic child.

 _Sure is an ass-clencher wondering which one of those it is._ Sky continued fuming as he ran. He'd been fuming for most of the evening and it had only gotten worse the more time passed. It went from playing watchdog on a mission they shouldn't have even been on to flipping a coin on whether or not the next batch of White Fang they closed in on would mow them down in an alley where they had no hopes of dodging.

Sky was suspicious how many times that flip was coming up heads for them.

Not a single gun since they'd started running. Every single one of them hadn't had a firearm. It was too fishy to leave alone. "Why don't any of them have guns? They should know there's no way for civilians to stop huntsmen like this."

"A majority of their forces tonight are civilian," The princess answered him. "Tonight was supposed to be something of an aura unlocking event. I imagine that the only ones with firearms were vetted White Fang security."

 _So that explains that… partially. Still doesn't explain why we haven't met a single faunus with a gun. You'd think the competent White Fang would have taken charge of the noobs and broke them down into squads. That doesn't make sense unless-_

"We're almost at the exit!" Blake's voice projected as far as was necessary for them to hear and not a meter further.

"Hell yeah!" Yang shouted. Cardin joined her in sparing the rest of them a grin that Sky couldn't return.

 _If there were gunners before and RWBY and the tagalongs didn't take them out that means…_

The instant they rounded the final corner towards the exit Sky lunges forward and grabbed Yang's best and Blake's… whatever she wore, yanking the two of them back behind the cover of the warehouse. Yang's red eyes as she rounded on him almost made him think he made the wrong call.

The bulletstorm that ravaged the warehouse next to them said he made the right one.

Red eyes quickly shifted to lilac. "How did you know?"

"No gunmen the entire way here," Sky gave a clipped answer. Yang might not have deserved his ire. Of course, she did allow her leader to do something this stupid, so maybe she did.

He hadn't stopped Cardin either.

"Makes sense," Neptune said. "If they set up here it'll be a real trick to break through. They can hold that exit and wait until reinforcements come."

"They can't hold out there forever. Someone has to notice eventually, right?" Sun asked.

"They're betting we die before then." Russel chuckled darkly.

"I'm betting we die before then." Sky snarked.

"Nobody is dying," Ruby stated firmly, or at least that's probably how she thought she sounded. Sky couldn't tell if it was reality or the immense amount of negative bias poisoning his view of her that made her sound like a mousy prepubescent schoolgirl. "We sneak away and call Beacon for help. A few detentions are better than taking any more risks."

 _The first smart thing she's done all night_. Sky didn't voice his thoughts. He wasn't going berate her for finally making the right decision no matter how angry he was.

Ruby turned them around quietly, keeping Yang and Blake in the lead position. She wasn't going to hear any complaints from him on that either. _She damn well better be using her own team for the most dangerous position._

They didn't make it past two warehouses before another grunt leaning against the warehouse completely relaxed. _If the front missed her then they're losing focus; she's standing right there._ Sky moved to shoulder-check her the same as he had the last Fang. He had to bend his knees to lower his center of mass so it'd connect. _She's a real short one._

It took him one second to realize that the person attacking him wasn't a faunus.

It was one second too many.

The attack came so fast he didn't have time to block with his aura. One second he was looking at a girl leaning against a warehouse. The next he was staring at a sword running through the area below his shoulder. His blood was quick to flower out and stain his clothes, but that wasn't what he focused on.

It was the burning pain of being stabbed. All of the nerves were firing to his synapses to let him know that something very, very bad was going on and it needed to stop. Adrenaline rushed into his system, the hormone forcing his brain into fight or flight. His mind and body screamed for him to flee. He refused. Sky refused to be owned by his fear ever again.

He pushed his body deeper onto the blade by an inch as he ignored the shouting of the people around him. They'd probably noticed he'd been hit, not that he had the time to focus on that. He reached his hands up to grab the blade and the girl's eyes went wide. She tried to wrench the weapon from his body. She pulled it an inch — that extra inch he'd driven it through — before his hand grabbed the blade.

 _Not on your life!_ Sky's mouth twisted into a wordless snarl. The aura in his hands flared as she tried to wrestle the blade away from him. She wasn't able to do it before Sky said the three words that professed his deepest desires at that moment.

"Fucking shoot her!"

He didn't know who was firing at her. He didn't care. The only thing that he did care about was that the mini-bitch was forced to let go of her weapon and disappear into the shattering of glass. He'd only heard it twice and Sky already hated that sound.

"Holy shit, are you okay?" Russel asked. Sky was on such an adrenaline high his body was almost able to block out the pain he was feeling.

"Not sure. If it's a girl runs me through does that still make me a homo?"

The look on Russel's face as he stared at him in wide-eyed shock was worth the uncharacteristic quip. His teammate burst into laughter. "I hate to break it to you but I don't think she's your type."

That was enough to make Sky laugh. Unfortunately, it was a bad idea to laugh with a sword stuck in you, no matter how shallow. The blade wiggled around from his movements and the biting pain reminded Sky it was an issue he needed to address. Grabbing the sword by the flat ends of the blade he pulled it out of his arm with a small squelch.

"Shame," Sky said to distract himself from the bout of nausea that hit him when he saw his wound ooze blood. He held the sword with his good arm and let it fall to his side. He didn't want to leave the psycho-midget's sword anywhere she could pick it up. "Mum always told me to marry the first girl I stuck it to."

"Since she stuck it to you I'd say you're in the clear. I'm sure your dear old mom didn't think you'd be the bottom." Cardin joked as he pointed at Sky's arm. Dove grabbed it gingerly and lifted it. Sky flinched and bit his lip, drawing a small amount of blood. Cardin ripped off a piece of the cloak he'd been wearing to hide his reflective armor in the night to bind the wound. "It'll hold if you keep it still."

"We need to keep moving," Sky looked at Ruby as he said it. She looked petrified as she looked at the blood that was already dampening the patch Cardin made. "I won't be much use until my aura patches me up."

Sky wasn't prepared to start her a fan club or anything, but Ruby had been good at keeping them in line before. Seeing him injured had flipped a switch in her head that they all needed to be pushed back to its original position. Being in an all boys team didn't lend itself well to delicately handling situations.

He didn't even bother trying. "Ruby!" His voice snapped harshly to get her attention. She actually flinched. He didn't smile at her and he didn't forgive her for putting his team in danger. As far as early impressions went he wasn't her biggest fan. He put that all aside. Right now that didn't matter. Right now there was only one thing that mattered.

"Get us home safe."

* * *

The red film over Sky's bandage was all that filled Ruby's vision. She hadn't planned for anyone at a huntsmen academy being unable to swim. She blamed herself. It was obvious that Sky was only here because of his team.

She was so ashamed.

"Ruby!" His voice cracked like a whip and hit her twice as hard. The impact of his voice was enough to make her flinch.

Was he going to blame her?

Was he going to try and pull his team out?

Was he going to suggest they kill the White Fang so they could safely make it out?

"Get us home safe."

His words weren't soft nor were they harsh. They weren't accusatory nor were they absolutions. It was a simple reminder of what Ruby's job was right then and there.

It was a reminder she heeded. "Dove, I want you up from the back to the middle with Sky and Russel. Cardin, Sun and Neptune will be our new back."

"We should put Neptune between the two of us," Sun added. "He's not as good in close range. If that girl comes back I don't know if he could take an attack like Sky did."

Ruby nodded her approval. It wasn't like she'd magically inherited some secret leader power under crisis. She'd hoped that was what would happen. It would have been exactly what would have happened with the huntresses in the storybooks she read as a kid. The real world hadn't given her any magic courage. The only thing that changed was a shift in her perspective.

It was her job to get everyone home safe. However freaked out she was, however guilty she was, however, scared she was would have to take a number and wait for a better time. She was the leader on this mission and she had a job to do.

Without a word, her team occupied the four front spots exactly as she'd intended them to. They'd switched their formation from five two's to four-three-three. She didn't wait to give the White Fang any more time to catch up to them, they were probably close already. Ruby gave the order to march.

"Blake," Ruby turned to her teammate with instructions as they ran. She hadn't noticed that her teammate was already doing exactly what she was going to tell her to do.

"What? How?" Blake asked her scroll in shock. Ruby wasn't sure how long Blake had been on her scroll. She'd been so focused on instructing everyone that anything not related to leadership or combat had greyed out in her mind. "I understand. We'll do what we can."

"Well?" Yang asked impatiently as they rounded a corner. Ruby was taking them further away from the entrance. Now was the time to stall as they called for help. She was going to get them as far away from the entrance as possible. She noticed the small alleyway ahead was blocked off by some debris so they'd have to turn right.

"The police got a call and are on their way. They're only five minutes out with Beacon close behind." Blake said as they turned the corner.

White Fang lined from warehouse to warehouse barred their escape.

"The boys in blue are on their way?" Torchwick's voice came from behind her. "Then I guess we'll have to make this quick."

Ruby spun left to find an escape. A small girl with pink and brown hair was enough to tell her she wasn't going to find it there.

"You hear that boys? They're the ones who screwed up out little shindig tonight," The White Fang roared to their right. Ruby's mind raced to try and find a way out. "Looks like your luck finally ran out you brats. No trainees here, only real bonafide White Fang."

* * *

 _I swear to god if these morons don't take the hint._ Roman swore silently.

First-year Beacon kiddos were almost always cast from the same mold. Bunch of sanctimonious brats who thought they could fix the ails of the world without committing a single misdeed in the process. Taking the life of someone who was about to take yours? Scandalous! That sunny optimism usually died out by the second or third year when Beacon had dropped them in enough hellholes to beat the rainbows out of them.

Red pulled them all tight and whispered what he could only assume were orders of some sort. The mongrels were probably waiting on his own order to attack. Funny how a group that hated him so much had become so dependent on his direction.

"Nowhere to run kids. Do me a favor and roll over and I promise we'll make your passing as painless as possible." Roman goaded them.

"Sounds like a shitty offer to me." The mohawked extra spoke up.

"You clearly don't know Neo." Roman sighed into his gloved hand.

Neo curtsied with a smile.

Roman was beginning to wonder if these kids deserved to die. He had a weapon that fired explosive rounds — which they knew — and they were standing in what was almost a huddle. If he fired a shot he was sure they'd bumblefuck around trying to escape and at least a few of them would be hit as they crashed into another in their attempts.

"Alright boys, let's get to work," Roman announced. He'd stalled for a whole minute when they only had four to spare. These White Fang loyalists knew this was a mission that ended with them in prison. They didn't care. The brats had heard about Cinder's plans to bring the more neutral recruits around to their way of thinking. Fifteen to change the minds of hundreds was well worth it to them. How did they know? Turned out the White Fang had a police scanner to listen in on. Who would have guessed?

Certainly not Roman. How could he have guessed that the largest terrorist organization in Vale would do one of the most tropeish things in the book?

With their pseudo-captain's blessing, Torchwick was able to send the rest of the Fang home to keep them safe. Cinder might not like the failure but she'd appreciate the minimization of loss. An animal or two here and there didn't make much of a difference.

"Go!" Red shouted to her group. The team split up with two to engage him, three to engage Neo, and five to engage the animals. Roman would have switched the three and the five around himself but hey, to each his own.

Roman held up his weapon as a katana fell upon him. The metal of the kitten's weapon met the compound alloy of his own.

"You picked me?" Roman brought his left hand to his mouth in faux shock. "I'm flattered, really, but it's not going to work out between us. You're a little too high maintenance for me."

Roman was forced to spin left, disengaging his cane from the cat's sword as a rapier thrust where his body had been.

"With these color schemes, I feel like I'm watching an old boob tube. Is that reference too dated for you kiddos?"

"Save your banter for my partner." The kitten snarled at him. The two girls barraged him with a series of attacks that he parried, blocked, deflected and dodged. He was on the back foot under their furious assault.

If you couldn't fight better fight clever — that was Roman's motto. Finding a gap between their attacks he flicked his cane towards the unoccupied center and fired a shot. The explosive shell missed wide on both of them. That was fine, he wasn't aiming for that.

Roman quickly collapsed his cane and hooked it to his belt as the shot blew up. The explosion from behind knocked them both forward, placing their slender necks into his waiting hands. He couldn't crush their throats as both had activated their aura to prevent it. He couldn't try and strangle them out because they'd soon regain their senses and try and stab him. What was a poor criminal to do?

Dispense some sweet karmic justice by slamming the two of them into the ground like flapjacks.

"Order up!"

* * *

Roman had told her that the greatest minds of Remnant had struggled long and hard with the dilemma known as satisfaction. She had loved bullying those weaker than her — it was safe and fun! It was like dissecting a doll as a kid with the added bonus of real-time unique reactions for each and every person. What was there not to love?

Neo ducked under the blonde bimbo's punch and delivered a side-kick to her stomach. The bimbo flailed backwards as her aura blocked most of the damage. The girl Roman called Red was running around her and firing shots at her feet while the shirtless wonder attacked her from behind.

She sighed silently as she kicked off the ground so her entire body was airborne and parallel to it. The blond boy was already mid attack with his staff and had aimed low, trying to learn from the bimbo's mistake of aiming high. _What an idiot._ Red was already aiming low, why was he doing the same? He could have cut off the center thinking she couldn't jump high enough to avoid both. It wouldn't have worked because she could, duh, but hey, he'd have gathered some more information.

The better bet was to swing high so Bimbo could crush her in the middle. Neo would then activate her semblance and attack one of them from behind. If they held that off, they had five or ten seconds to catch her before she could do it again. She shouldn't have expected kids to entertain her like that — she didn't, really.

But Uzumaki had.

" _To taste the fruit of knowledge is to never know the bliss of ignorance again,"_ Neo remembered the stuffy old man Roman had quoted when she asked him about what she was feeling. Sounded dumb and pretentious at the time. Now it was hitting way closer to home than she would have liked.

Neo was bored, plain and simple. Red kept shooting at her feet, afraid she might hit her team if she aimed for the body while Blond and Blonder kept up their random assault that failed to pin her down. If these kids had any teamwork between them she might not have been able to hold them off. _Might_. At least it would be interesting that way.

 _Two minutes till the cops get here._ Neo's boredom with this fight was making her weary. She couldn't even kill them a little to liven things up. _This blows._

Neo forced her parasol head open with both her hands to block Bimbo's view as she feinted a round kick to Shirtless' head. The monkey blocked and she torqued her hips to kick from the other side. Her pointed boot to his dome sent the monkey sprawling onto the ground.

"Sun!" Red cried out in a whiney and far too irritating to be natural voice. Not for the first time in her life Neo found herself wishing her muteness was some sort of transferable disease.

"You bitch!" Bimbo swore at her as she tried to wrestle the parasol out of Neo's hands. The insult was exasperating at best. What was annoying was Bimbo was actually doing an annoyingly good job of fucking with her parasol — the absence of her sword that served as its handle making it far more unruly to manage.

 _This is such a pain._ Neo wanted to groan as she wrestled for control of her sort-of-weapon. She was ready to rush down Red and be done with it all when she realized something. Roman didn't say she had to play by their rules. All he'd said was to keep them busy. A quick glance to the melee between the White Fang and the boys. Spotting her mark she allowed a grin to creep up her face.

Red started firing again while Bimbo anchored her down using her parasol. Shirtless was swiping his staff across just short of her body. _Finally_. She was starting to think they'd never try and cut off her movement.

Neo used the opportunity to try and pull her parasol free from Bimbo's grasp. Unsurprisingly the girl was more than content to let Neo fall backwards into her ally's strike. It was disappointing how easy it was for Neo to get her way. They assumed she was panicking and making a D-class rookie mistake. Her? Neapolitan? Not a chance.

Uzumaki would have seen what she was aiming for. He would have held onto that parasol.

With the sound of glass breaking around her as Neo's vision went black. It only took a few seconds before her eyes were filled with light once more and she found her prize.

* * *

It was hard to say if their fight against fifteen Fang with their auras unlocked being the easiest part of the night was a sign that they'd grown stronger or a general critique of how crappy their night had been.

 _Actually, no it's not. Tonight's been ass_. Sky swore. He felt like he'd swore more times tonight than he had in the past year. He blamed Russel for that — he was a bad influence. Sky brought his halberd down on the White Fang who was presently trying to impale the bad influence on his spear. The terrorist's aura flared as he leapt backward to safety.

Sky's arm was forwarding more pain signals to his brain now that some of the adrenaline was starting to wear off. He did his best to ignore it.

"Thanks." Russel's chest heaved as his body tried to force more oxygen into his system. The Russel Thrush of a month ago couldn't have handled all this running. It was another way Naruto was saving their asses despite not actually being here.

CRDL didn't have much of a standardized fighting formation. What they did have was experience thanks to Naruto constantly tasking them with mental exercises. There were plenty of details that changed the scope of what they wanted entirely.

The biggest was that their goal wasn't to knock them all out. They wanted to hold out until reinforcements arrived. Cardin had phrased it as 'If we don't die, we live'. If they did live through this Sky was motivated to give him shit for that obvious statement of the decade.

They took a box formation and shoved themselves against a wall. Russel would dart out past Cardin and Dove to get a few hits in before disappearing behind Cardin's protective shield. Sky would cover any of them when they were under attack with his range.

The Neptune guy took shots with his weapon from behind the two frontliners, prioritizing anyone who thought to break off and try and help Torchwick or the psycho-bitch. It didn't look like those two needed any help, so Sky guessed it was an attempt to make them break formation. Neptune kept that from being an issue. It eased Sky's ire towards the guy's inability to swim.

Of course, a box formation pressed against a wall had an obvious weakness; they were sitting ducks for ranged attacks. Guns would turn their position against the wall into a turkey shoot before they could say 'gobble gobble'. So it was a spot of very suspect luck that not a single White Fang here had a gun. Again.

Eight of the Fang attacked at once before Sky could pursue that thought any further, surrounding their box formation as they sought to overwhelm CRDNL's defenses. Neptune fired his dust weapon on their right flank, blasting a hole through the assault as the three on the Fang's right wing were forced to break off to avoid the gunfire. That opening was enough for Russel to dart out and circle on them. The center that was going to engage Cardin and Dove head-on was forced to divert their focus to the mohawked marauder.

"PUSH!" Cardin bellowed. They forced themselves forward, leaving behind the cover of the warehouse they'd backed up to as they engaged the three on the left wing. It was three on three while Neptune kept the three members of the Fang's right from re-engaging by peppering them with shots to shut down their attempts.

The even numbers trade should have been heavily in their favor. Dove's aura took an unnecessary hit because Sky's injury combined with Psycho-Bitch's sword was messing with his ability to move. Not wanting to leave it somewhere she could pick it up he's hung the sword from his belt loop. The parasol handle made for an easy hook. The sword slapped against his leg if ever he moved too drastically.

Sky had front row seats to watch Cardin taking the advice of Pyrrha Nikos. The sword-wielding faunus he engaged was too focused on his admittedly terrifying mace. His leader seized the opening and bashed his kiteshield into the Fang's face. The enemy staggered back, disoriented and unable to see what was going on in front of him. Swinging in a wide arc for more power Cardin absolutely leveled the guy with a horizontal strike of his mace. The enemy still had the sense to throw up his aura, not that it mattered.

Cardin blew right through it.

The faunus was knocked back, tumbling three times before coming to a stop. His arm was broken and bleeding while his aura sparked violently to try and repair the damage. It couldn't. Aura didn't work like that.

That wasn't the only foe Cardin was engaging. There were three — now two — enemy combatants in the left wing while Russel kept the center busy. Dove was only dealing with one of them. Sky was behind the two of them as he tried to keep the third at bay. Galvanized by his fallen brethren the White Fang member charged straight into Sky's strike zone to try and use his katana to rend Cardin from stem to stern.

Cardin wasn't in position to block as he tried to reset his stance from his incredibly heavy attack.

 _Come on Sky! You came out tonight to keep your idiots safe. Time to put your money where your mouth is._

When Sky hefted his weapon above his head he felt the wound below his shoulder burning. He'd lost track of how many times his body berated him with pain to stop while he continued to ignore it. He had hoped it would take the hint and stop shoving the pain in his face by the bucketload. No such luck.

When he brought down his weapon he didn't care if Psycho-Bitch's stupid sword impaled his leg. He'd strike fast and true to save his leader, his friend. Nothing would stop him. There wasn't pain or fear enough in Remnant to turn him from his path.

His halberd descended with purpose and power. The aura of the terrorist flared before giving way to the strength he'd honed over the past months. The blade lodged itself into the White Fang's shoulder as she screamed in agony. It was a good hit, a clean hit.

Yet some sense of fear whispered at the back of his mind. It was a message he felt was audible without being distinguishable. The hit was good. The hit was clean. There was nothing about his strike that he felt needed reproach.

And that was the problem. The strike was perfect…

But with the sword on his belt, it shouldn't have been.

His eyes fell down to his side.

He found her sword there.

But it wasn't where he left it.

It was buried in his gut.

It wasn't all at once...

But his vision slowly began to flicker...

Until darkness took him completely.

* * *

Naruto wiped the sweat from his brow as he exited his cave. It had been a much longer birthday than he'd anticipated.

Things with Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury had gone alright. There hadn't been any fighting that he'd noticed. He wasn't anywhere close to arrogant enough to think that everything going peachy was a result of his plan working its magic. Cinder was playing nice right now as she continued to scope him out. To be fair that basically was his plan.

The more he thought about it the worse it sounded. On the day of his birth Naruto found himself in much the same way he'd found himself the birthday before; adrift and lost on what he was supposed to do.

Although that feeling was the same in a common sense, he knew it was different too. He was lost in a different way now.

"I'm not sure who I am anymore," Naruto spoke to the crackling campfire. "I don't know what to do."

An old man among children. He'd begun to think he was crazy for thinking it could ever work. He was far too different from them. He'd had a life and friends already. Wasn't one life enough? If it wasn't to protect his friends, his village, why was he even alive?

"I only wanted immortality to make sure my home and those I care about were protected… to make sure the people I cared about couldn't be hurt again. Now I'm stuck an entire reality away from home. What was the point of living the way I did if I couldn't stop what came?"

A log broke down into embers, answering him with a flurry of sparks rising into the air.

"Now I'm wondering if that was all an excuse. They forced me out of my home and away from everyone I ever cared about… I don't think I could do it again. I think losing all my friends again would be enough to do me in."

Naruto looked into the night sky. He was far enough away from the hustle and bustle of the city to see a beautiful starry night splayed out before him. It had been over a year and he still didn't call this sky his own. Would he ever?

"I don't know if I'm holding back because I can't understand them or if I'm doing it because I don't want to. Been so long since I've been afraid of anything I can't say I remember what it feels like."

To save everyone he'd sought an unbeatable power. The ridiculous advice he'd given Ruby that one day in class was the way he'd chosen to live his life. He never wanted anyone he cared about to be hurt again.

"Except that isn't true, is it? I can't stop people from getting hurt. Being hurt is part of being alive, being human. That wasn't what I was hoping to do."

That's what those other Kage had tried to do — remove risk, remove the ninja way. That wasn't what he wanted. Facing danger and fear, learning to handle it responsibly, that was part of growing up.

"I never wanted to feel like I was too weak to save someone again. I didn't want to feel like I wasn't enough."

That was the crux of it all. When it mattered most, in their most dire hour, when all his friends needed him he had failed. He hadn't been strong enough to face his opponent. And that forced others to make the ultimate sacrifice.

"I would have done the same for you, ya know? If it was you in danger I would have jumped in front of those spikes in a heartbeat, same as you did for me. Would it have been the same if I did though?"

No. He knew the answer was no. Naruto had been necessary to win that fight. If he had sacrificed himself to save a friend then all his friends would have died. It wouldn't have been sacrifice — it would have been selfishness.

"Hinata was obligated to save me. I know that's not why she did it, but she was. You saved her because you loved her, but I think you might have taken that attack for me too. You were a smart guy. Pretty sure you were smarter then than I am now." Naruto chuckled.

"What should I do, Neji?"

The fire crackled gayly, lighting up the portrait of his dead friend. A friend Naruto felt like he'd let down in that war every day of his life since.

On his birthday there were always two events he did without fail: in the morning he paid his respects to those he had lost. In the night, only when darkness had fallen, he took the firewood he gathered earlier in the day and made a fire. Once more the pictures of all those he'd lost stared down at him as he sat on the ground, lit only by fire and moonlight.

He'd done this every day since he became immortal. It was his way of allowing himself something he desperately wanted that he was never going to get. Kakashi-sensei said that when he died he met his father around a campfire and was given a chance to make peace with him. Naruto wanted that more than anything.

He would never have it.

During the night of his birthday, Naruto indulged himself in the wishful fantasy of seeing all the smiling faces of the people he'd lost. He imagined that he'd get to talk to Neji one last time and apologize for his weakness. If he'd been as strong then as he was now...

"If only…" Naruto sighed as his eyes lost their focus.

It was brusque outside that night, yet Naruto didn't know if he was cold or filled with warmth.

* * *

 ** _Naruto... I'm worried you and your existential crisis have wandered into my action chapter. Hope you all enjoyed my return chapter. If you want to know more about what Roman said to the White Fang I have ten pages pretty much dedicated to it. I scrapped it from the chapter because I felt it bogged down the introduction far too much. It's posted on Pa+reon if you're a glutton for more story._**

 ** _For those worried why I'm not asking for your money as is tradition it's because I've lined up a job. I want to see what that entails before I start driving for donations again. Making that clear for all the lovely people who like to moan about me bringing it up. You have not convinced me, I will resume when I feel it is appropriate._**

 ** _Edit: On the topic of Neji (probably should have posted this with the chapter, but I was far too tired) I received a review that pointed out something very valid. The summary of said review was that Neji's death had a very low impact in canon. Why the hell is it mattering in this story? I want to point out before I continue that this is an incredibly valid opinion, hence this response._**

 ** _This is me calling bullshit on the creators of Naruto. Naruto's entire character is basically ninja Jesus with a complex about saving people and death. With his entire shonen quest to be strong and protect the people he cares about I have no idea how I as a reader was supposed to believe that a friend sacrificing his life to save him(Naruto) because he couldn't fight the ten tails would have zero emotional and psychological impact on him /edit/ in the long term. Naruto showed more reaction to Asuma's death then he did to Neji's. I gave it a pass initially because I figured they would touch on that trauma in Boruto. They haven't._**

 ** _And that's why I say I'm calling crap. Nobody with a messiah complex like Naruto has someone kill themselves to save his life (technically to save someone who was trying to save his life, semantics) and goes on like nothing happened. OFNT as a story is based on the idea of what would happen if Naruto reacted like a human being to Neji's death. Refusing to become Hokage because he wants to be a foot soldier so he could clear out more danger, difficulty forming bonds, PTSD — all these things in my story stem directly from Neji's death or from a decision he made because of Neji's death._**

 ** _That's the gist of it._**

 ** _Next up is CH5 of F &C_**


	34. Uncertainty

_**Greetings and salutations! I have arrived at the Great White North, obtained my work schedule, and decided my writing schedule. Rejoice those of you who wished to know when I release once more. Starting this Sunday (7/8) I will release a chapter each Sunday, alternating between OFNT and F &C. Life has been figured out and I am loyal to the patrons who have stayed with me through this turbulent time to continue producing, not to mention all the readers of this fic. I don't know how you made it past the first ten or so chapters of this story, but I'm glad to have you.**_

 ** _Let's talk OFNT real quick. This series has been in a bit of a hole for me. It was always meant to be a hurt/comfort story, but it has felt buried in angst for far too long. When I took a look at the horizon all I could see was more of the same. It wasn't good enough for me, and I didn't want to present it to my readers. This chapter is the solution that I worked up to dealing with the events that have recently transpired. I am incredibly proud of the dialogue in this one especially. I hope you enjoy._**

 ** _For those of you who like analysis, there will be an exceptionally long one at the end of this chapter._**

* * *

 **Chapter 32**

 **Uncertainty**

When Sky woke up he didn't know where he was. The vague memories of what happened before he'd lost consciousness had him questioning _if_ he was the first few seconds he was awake. He wasn't in much pain, that was good, or potentially bad. It was hard to tell. He felt like he should be in pain. That he wasn't was a concern.

He felt well enough to wrestle his reluctant eyelids open. Through sheer force of will, he plied them open by a fraction, only enough to see what was directly in front of him. A hand glowed faintly on his chest. It was all he could see before fatigue dragged his eyelids shut.

Sky recognized Naruto's voice. "You got lucky. You all did."

"He's going to be okay?!"

"The medic on the bullhead said he was still in the woods."

Russel and Dove, truly the energy and temperance of Team Cardinal. Russ sounded absolutely frantic, the force of raw emotion wearing down his throat. Dove's voice was composed, level, and most anyone who heard him would have said it sounded normal. It didn't, not to Sky. It was almost a third of an octave higher, the strain from worrying driving his normal pitch up. They were worried about him.

"They probably thought his axillary artery got clipped, the wound was right there. It was a narrow miss."

"There was so much blood…"

"Way too fucking much."

"He'll be okay? You're sure?" Cardin asked the same question Russel had. It was spoken with the timidity of a prayer to god one wasn't sure they deserved to have granted. Sky could hear how ragged his leader was. He'd never heard Cardin sound so weak.

"His aura is already patching him up. It's making the right choice and prioritizing the shoulder wound over the scrape on his arm too. I didn't realize it was smart enough to prioritize."

"He'll be okay?" Cardin pressed him for the answer he'd yet to give.

The silence was heavy as it set over the room. Naruto was the one to break it with his almost characteristic sigh. "He'll be fine."

As tired as his team was the tension popped like a balloon. Dove and Cardin released their held breaths, finally able to accept they were out of the woods. Russel, the idiot that he was, actually whooped. Sky would have smiled if he had the ability. He was so tired that he couldn't manage to open his eyes.

"He'll be fine this time. If you drag your team into suicidal missions like this, none of you will be for long," Naruto snapped at Cardin. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"RWBY needed our help. We owed them-"

"Owed them? _Owed them?!_ Have I been in a coma recently? How else could I have missed whatever happened that made you think you needed to get your own team killed for their team?"

"It wasn't like we knew everything was gonna go to shit." Russel defended their leader.

Naruto was having none of it. "You were invading a terrorist compound. What were you expecting?" Someone must have filled him in on what happened.

"We were only there as an insurance policy meant only to act if something went horribly wrong."

"So the only time you guys would have mattered was if things went to hell? Meaning the only point of you being there was if things went wrong."

"Things did go wrong, but if we weren't there RWBY would have been fucked."

Sky would have kneed his teammate in the throat the instant he heard the word 'but' to stop him from finishing that sentence. Naruto's reaction was as expected.

"How nice of you to volunteer Sky to bend over and take it on their behalf," Naruto growled, the vulgar phrase sounding foreign on his lips.

Sky wanted to rise to his team's defense. He'd told them it was a stupid, moronic, and dangerous thing to do, same as Naruto was telling them now. They'd ignored him, choosing to press on regardless of the warnings he'd berated them with. He should have felt vindicated that Naruto was taking his side. He wasn't. He didn't know why he wasn't, but he wasn't.

He felt guilty.

"They didn't volunteer anything," Cardin drew Naruto's fury upon himself. "I didn't listen to Sky and brought us all there to help RWBY. He told me not to. I did it anyways. That isn't on either of them, it's on me."

 _Don't say that._ Sky was surprised to hear himself think. He probably told Cardin that exact verbatim at some time during the night. Was it still night? He didn't think to check for sunlight when he opened his eyes and now couldn't manage to replicate the feat. His entire body felt leaden.

Against all odds, Naruto did not explode on Cardin. "It's… not entirely your fault," Naruto sighed. Sky hated how often he sighed like every day was mentally taxing him to his limits. "Ruby should have had a better plan. You trusted a friend, I get that. It's easy to jump to a friend's aid when they need it without thinking about it. It's still on you to guarantee you aren't jumping into a death trap. Or if you are, at least know that beforehand so you can prepare."

"I know…"

The charge in the air had dissipated as the mood turned to solemnity. Sky wanted to force himself into the conversation and tell everyone that he was fine. For all the hell he'd promised himself he'd give Cardin if they made it out alive… all that vengeful ire had disappeared.

And with it, Sky felt his mind begin to slip once more. He fought to stay awake, every part of him refusing to be drawn back into the void of unconsciousness. It was of no use. His body needed the sleep and was determined to get it.

After all, it knew he'd almost died.

* * *

It was hard to be mad at Cardinal. They'd only wanted to help their friends, or classmates possibly. It was hard to tell if RWBY and CRDL were close enough to call them friends. If they weren't before, they sure as hell should be now. Wasn't anything quite like taking a blade for someone to endear them to you.

That was Naruto's attempt at heading off his presently explosive temper. It had been less than a month since Blake had tried to get him and the blonde faunus killed. He thought RWBY had taken his lesson to heart. He was obviously, painfully mistaken.

 _And Sky paid the price for it._ Naruto thought bitterly. As furious as he was at RWBY — particularly Blake, who he was sure was the catalyst for this nightmare — he was far more angry at himself.

If you were on a mission it made sense to trust your back to your squadmate. It was perfectly logical. What made little sense was trusting a bunch of untested juveniles to put practicality before idealism. They were all young. More importantly, they were inexperienced.

Naruto had watched his best friend fall on a dark path. Multiple others were in some way controlled by seals such as Neji and Sai. His village had been invaded and the Hokage assassinated when he was years younger than Ruby. He'd trusted RWBY not to do anything reckless because he'd treated them by the same standards he treated the seventeen-year-olds he'd grown up with. Seventeen-year-olds forged in the flames of war and tragedy.

Death had been a constant likelihood for their teenage years.

Who was more stupid? The child who touched the fire or the adult who let a child run rampant near flames? Blake's disobedience at the docks had been completely her own fault; she promised to let him lead. All she'd claimed to have wanted was to verify if the White Fang were involved with the dust robbery. He could have blamed himself for trusting her, sure. He didn't, chiefly due to not liking the path that line of thinking took a life. In most non-lethal instances it was better to trust and give someone a chance to let you down.

That wasn't what made him so furious. It was that Sky had almost died. That was on him for playing around with Torchwick and his ally instead of knocking them out and handing them over to the authorities. Contrary to everyone's belief, Sky had not actually been in danger of dying from that wound. It didn't look good, but it wasn't lethal. Sky's body had been its own worst enemy, overreacting to a wound that wasn't actually problematic. Again, the difference between the two worlds showed.

It was past midnight as Naruto stomped through the halls of Beacon. When he'd returned from his night out not long ago he did not find his team sleeping peacefully as he thought he would. Instead, Pyrrha was camped outside their door awaiting his return, moroseness painting her features. That was how he found that Sky was in critical condition, or thought to be anyways.

 _The wound was too close. He could have died — should have died. He was intentionally spared._ Naruto knew that to be the case without a fraction of doubt. The girl was skilled, even by his standards. Having heard she had gotten the drop on Sky, Naruto knew he'd be dead if she wanted it. The fact that she didn't was a blessing. He'd left the two of them alive because regardless of the swagger Roman had he didn't think the two were killers. Well, in the sense that they would avoid it unless it was necessary.

They were lucky it wasn't necessary.

Sky and Roman both.

He was on his way to a particular room — one hidden away from the gazes of others — when someone stopped him. "Is he going to be alright?" Naruto heard the same question he'd heard three times already. He must have been out of it to have completely missed the asker as he passed by. Not that the questioner had much presence in the first place.

"He's fine, Ren. What are you even doing up this late?"

"Nora," Ren answered, acting like that explained everything. With how easy it was for Naruto to imagine Nora tearing a sleeping Ren out of bed, it kind of did. "And fine? I thought you'd have called it anything but. I expected you to… act on that."

 _I expected you to head straight to RWBY._ Ren had left unsaid.

"It's on my to-do list," Naruto gave a gruff admittance. He'd be correcting RWBY's mistakes, oh yes. As high a priority as that was you didn't make it to your sixties — at least with a life like he'd lived — without knowing an important lesson.

He'd be fixing RWBY's mistakes, just as soon as he fixed his own. What he'd thought was a sporting game of catch and release had landed a friend in the medical wing. He'd save tearing RWBY a new one for their many mistakes tonight for when he'd fixed his own.

Naruto didn't realize he'd thought of Sky as a friend in that instant.

"I suspected as much. It's why I'm here."

"To try and talk me out of it?"

"Mmm," Ren hummed an agreement.

Naruto scoffed. "I don't envy you."

"Neither do I."

The bold honesty was enough to make Naruto snort. "How'd you draw the short end of the stick?"

"Necessity," Ren chuckled, the air between them tense, though not overly so. Naruto and Ren had grown closer over the past months. He'd accepted that Ren had some idea of what he was capable of and continued to trust him in spite of it, something he appreciated immensely. Naruto's lack of interest in obliterating Vale from orbit seemed to garner similar gratitude from Ren. "Nora would ask you to be nice until she was blue in the face. Pyrrha's method wouldn't be too different, though she has the public speaking skills to dress the words up."

"No one else to do the job so you have to?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Yeah…" Naruto sighed. "I feel ya there."

It was the story of his life.

"That is part of what I don't understand," Ren said as he leaned his back against the hallway wall. "You hurt yourself to teach RWBY a lesson — to keep them safe. If that was the goal, why not help Blake deal with the White Fang yourself?"

Ren's posture leaned against the wall suggested relaxation. The reality was anything but. The air charged between them as Naruto's eyes took a steely glint.

"I don't agree with Blake dragging anyone and everyone into her problems. I wouldn't volunteer our team for something so risky."

"I didn't ask about our team," Ren refused to back down. "I asked why you didn't deal with it yourself. We both know you could."

Naruto's trust waned as he regarded Ren cautiously. "I kind of assumed we had a working agreement not to talk about this."

"We did," Ren admitted. "I was too scared to do anything about you when I first felt your aura. Now I am too worried not to."

"Worried for RWBY?"

"Yes, although they are not my primary concern. I'm most worried you'll go and get one of them to stab your eye to try and teach them the importance of visualizing the battlefield. It is concern for my leader that is forcing me to null our unspoken deal."

"Your leader sounds like a handful."

"And a half," Ren added, his lips twisting into a small, playfully accusatory smile.

Naruto laughed. "Since when have you had a sense of humor?"

"It must have developed over the past months while a certain person deemed it funny to have all his jokes end with me as the punchline. Humor obtained as a means of self-defense, who knew it possible?"

Naruto smiled at that. He did, that's for sure. He'd learned an instrument under the threat of certain death from Sakura. Fear was a hell of a motivational tool. In Ren's case, it was more a means to avoid comedic torture, but same difference.

"I'd appreciate your agreement to not go and maim yourself in order to teach our sister team a lesson. If we can come to an agreement on that we can bypass the need for any more conversation and get at least five hours of sleep before classes tomorrow."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Blake refused to listen to words because no one had gotten hurt. I made it so someone got hurt so she would listen. I'm not some sort of self-harming maniac who does it for kicks."

"No, you're not. What you are is willing to absorb the pain of others in the hopes it will somehow bring them happiness. It doesn't, and it hasn't."

Naruto sighed, allowing himself to lean against the same wall as Ren before sliding down to a seat on the cold tile floor. "That's up for debate. I don't agree with RWBY pulling the CRDL boys into life or death. But if they hadn't?"

"It's likely a member of RWBY would have died, yes," Ren nodded. "I don't know the specifics of what happened tonight. What I do know is that it's obvious Ruby attempted to minimize risk as you'd taught her to do so- the fact that she didn't succeed does not mean she didn't try." Ren added as Naruto opened his mouth. He reluctantly closed it and looked towards the ground.

"Pointing out how my methods did produce results; you have an interesting way of trying to convince me not to use them."

"Correlation does not equal causation."

Naruto fixed him with an exasperated gaze until he relented.

"In this case, I admit it is likely your words were what inspired such caution in Ruby. She did invite a team and a half of reinforcements."

"It wasn't enough," Naruto grunted. Sky had been half an inch away from dying. "I need to make sure she knows it wasn't enough."

"She does."

"Really?" Naruto seethed, his mood quickly plunging south. "She does? Did I imagine Sky bandaged up unconscious in bed?"

"You are confusing intent with results," Ren didn't balk, holding Naruto's intense glare with placid tranquility. "Ruby failed to keep those she involved safe, yes. However, she went through great efforts in the attempt to do so. She does not need you to impress the importance of safety upon her again. She already understands it. If you wish to help, you'd be better served to teach her the means by which she could get everyone home safe."

"She doesn't need me to teach her how to handle dangerous situations. If she was remotely concerned about their safety she wouldn't have let any of them step into a situation with so many unknowns."

"It was my understanding that Blake was adamant about dealing with the White Fang on her own if necessary. She did what she did to keep her team safe knowing it was risky, knowing it might not work out but unable to find another avenue forward."

"Desperation doesn't make what she did acceptable."

"No, it does not," Ren relented, sliding down the wall the same as he had to sit down beside him. "People in bad situations don't make the best decisions. Those who do are only able to do so out of blind luck or because they've been in enough bad situations to become accustomed to the pressure that accompanies them. I won't argue that RWBY made a mistake- multiple mistakes throughout this ordeal. What I ask is that you don't hurt them to try and manufacture the pain that led to your own caution."

Naruto didn't respond. He stared forward, thinking about what Ren had said. The only sound in the air was the low buzz of the overhanging lights.

"I wouldn't hurt them." Naruto finally responded after minutes of nothingness.

"No?" Ren immediately questioned back. "I am not sure what they are to you — I'm not even sure what our team is to you — but you are something to all of us. Seeing you in pain hurts all those who care about you, regardless of your willingness to accept it. Your willingness to bear the pain and injury that rightfully belongs to others to try and help them-"

"Because I can take it," Naruto interjected.

"I know you can," Ren agreed, a sad smile on his face as he turned to look at Naruto. "But they can't take you taking it. The more pain you absorb on their behalf the more guilt-ridden they will become. Burning your own hand on the stove teaches you to be safe around it. Watching a friend burn their hand on the stove because you forgot to turn it off might make you just as safe, or it could just as easily scare you into not using the stove again."

Naruto gave Ren a look of stark disbelief. "Ruby would never stop being a huntress." She was too pure, too full of the desire to help everyone around her. It reminded Naruto of how he'd once been. He still wanted to help people, that never faded. He knew now that to help others meant to make them capable of existing without you.

"You don't think so?" Ren asked, mild surprise lining his voice. "Ruby became a huntress to help people. I'd know that even if she hadn't said it to about everyone she'd met in passing, which she almost does. If she thought her being a huntress — her decisions as a huntress — were hurting people, let alone her first friend at Beacon, why wouldn't she quit?"

Naruto winced. It was a hard thing to hear, especially because he could not disagree. He wanted to, only there were no means by which to do so. He wanted to make Ruby question her decisions, not question her ability to lead entirely.

Their conversation paused once more. While Naruto thought Ren appeared perfectly content to sit and wait quietly. It was close to one in the morning at that point, the night having gone on past the already long night he'd intended to have. Ren waited for his leader to finish regardless of time, making it clear that this was a talk easily worth losing a night of sleep over.

When he did speak, Naruto couldn't give up his views that easily. "Better that I'm the one to break them into how harsh the world can be than for them to realize it on their own. Better for them to realize it where I can guarantee the only damage they receive is to their mind."

Ren shook his head. "You can't shield them from everything. Even if you try and teach them everything you can think of, even if you teach it in a way where they can't help but learn because you give them no other choice, they will eventually run into a problem you haven't taught them. Today they needed to be careful, but what about tomorrow?"

"You should always be careful."

"You should always try to lower the risk you're taking," Ren amended Naruto's words. "If you're trapped somewhere and an enemy has called for reinforcements you need to boldly push out. Given your lessons on carefulness, Ruby may choose to be careful and look for a completely safe opportunity to escape, missing the window before her team becomes surrounded. Carefulness and minimizing risk are not the same thing."

Naruto turned his head to face Ren. "I know that," He snapped.

"I know you know. You know that I know. Neither of us knows if they know," Ren paused, sighing as he broke Naruto's gaze and turned his eyes towards the ceiling. "You'll be around to keep us safe on our mission. You can't say the same of CRDL and RWBY. I also know that's why you're so much harder on RWBY than you are on us. I'm sure that's part of why you trained Cardin over us as well. Don't undo all the work you've put in teaching them to act responsibly by scaring them to the point they're too afraid to do anything at all."

There wasn't any need for a third round of contemplation. Though unparallelled in the field of battle, Naruto knew he was not infallible in matters of the mind. Plenty of people lived differently from the way he did. There was nothing wrong with that. Once more, Naruto found himself bested in the matters of the mind, by a boy of seventeen no less.

His pride smarted, reasonably so.

"I don't regret what I did after the docks. There's nothing you can do to make me," Naruto declared, making Ren arch an eyebrow of question at him. "But in this case… well…"

"You see my point and concede?" Ren asked with a modicum of smugness. Naruto could hear the silent laughter in his voice. "I'm proud of you. That must have been very hard to say. You're a big person to admit when you're wrong."

"You're a bastard," Naruto chuckled, swatting the top of his shoulder. He would have smacked him in the back of the head if his teammate hadn't so tactically backed it against a wall. "I thought you were the quiet member of the group. When'd you become so mouthy?"

"You only have yourself to blame for that. A man can only take so much before he is forced to act."

Naruto grinned. "I guess that means I bring out the best in you."

"I'd say it's the worst. I can't imagine having another leader who would force me to act in such a way."

"You should be grateful to me for breaking you out of your shell."

"I'm not."

"Bastard," Naruto chuckled again. He saw a smile creep through Ren's features, though he did his best to hide it.

A third silence did occur. It was markedly different from the first two. Those were the silences you'd find in the eye of the storm — a quiet lull between bouts of thunder and lightning. This silence was the sign that the storm had well and truly passed. A night that should have left him bitter had left him strangely hopeful.

A realization struck Naruto. It entered his mind and left his lips before he had the opportunity to censor it.

"You're a good friend, Ren."

His teammate was, by all means reasonably, surprised. Ren had clearly what he'd chosen to say near the bottom of the list of things he was expected to. For a second his teammate had a warm and happy smile.

It quickly returned to the smug one he'd seen before.

"You could use some work before I say the same."

"You know what? Fuck you."

It was impossible to have spent as much time with CRDL as he had without adopting the ever-present suite of swear words in some capacity. The all-boys team had imparted a small change on him without his knowledge. Tonight he'd allowed Ren to change his mind actively, even if the change was slight.

He stood by what he'd done. He would take the pain for others because he knew his back was broad enough to bear it. He'd come to Remnant and resolved to not let this life be like his first. Naruto had decided that he would enjoy a normal life as the closest thing this world had to a normal shinobi.

He could not do it. He'd spent his whole life chasing after being the best. Trying to contain that desire and appear weak was a facade that caused constant stress. Almost sixty years of trying to protect people had conditioned him into a compulsive need to continue doing so.

He wanted to help the kids here. Friends or not, he didn't want any of them to die. He'd pursued whatever means he could to ensure that they didn't. Cardinal needed training, so he gave it. RWBY was strong enough for this world, so he'd given them guidance. When he thought they needed it, he'd given them the fear they so sorely lacked.

He didn't regret doing that. He couldn't, they'd needed a dose of reality. But Ren had a point. Fear was a good thing. Too much fear was a detriment.

 _I'll play it by ear._ Naruto kicked the issue down the road by declaring it Future-Naruto's problem. It wasn't completely irresponsible — at least he tried to convince himself of that.

After all, his improvisation was usually pretty good.

* * *

Cinder liked to believe that her orchestrated planning was of the highest caliber. She'd demonstrated the truth of that many, many times throughout her life. She'd swayed the White Fang to be pawns at her disposal. She'd orchestrated a plan to conquer Beacon and topple Remnant that any tactician would kill to have accredited to their name.

So why was she awake at two in the morning, standing in one of their many warehouses, dealing with a mess that had no right to exist in the first place?

"Roman, you were touted as the crime lord of all of Vale. I recruited you because I assumed that title came with some degree of competency."

"Hey, don't try and peg this on me," Roman complained, gnashing the lit cigar in his mouth in the process. "I suggested putting every last mangy White Fang mutt on guard duty while I won over the crowd. You were the one who told me to seed half of them in the crowd to try and taint the fresh blood. If I had it my way those brats wouldn't have been able to come within a mile of that warehouse."

Cinder's face showed nothing while her entire being fumed beneath the surface.

She _had_ ordered him to do so. The number she'd decided to leave on guard had been enough to eliminate any blind spots if half of them were to spontaneously fall asleep. Yet not only had a group of first years infiltrated the event, but they'd managed to then escape a hundred trained White Fang and a few hundred other recruits.

Uzumaki could have done it, possibly. Cinder had her doubts that even one such as him could have managed to make it around the guard patrol that was her own creation. To suggest that RWBY had been able to do so? Impossible.

She'd done some digging into the team after learning that Ruby Rose was allowed into Beacon two years premature. She'd expected a prodigal huntress of the highest caliber.

It was hard to decide if the emotion she felt was closer to disbelief or relief.

With that in mind, she knew it was impossible for that team to have successfully snuck past the guard rotations she'd set up. She'd suspected Uzumaki initially. Cinder quickly moved past that knee-jerk theory.

It didn't fit what she knew of him.

Whereas she played the game to win, Uzumaki played for superiority. Both require victory, true, only the means by which they could obtain it was different. It wasn't a role she liked, but Cinder was willing to feign defeat in order to obtain victory. Uzumaki's idea of victory was one of overwhelming domination. It was not his victory unless your loss was undeniable at all stages, as was your knowledge that it was he that caused it.

While she understood the taste one could develop for domination — as she had— Cinder herself refused to allow it to control how she approached a plan. Dealing with Uzumaki was easier if he believed he had the upper hand, thus she allowed him to believe it.

 _Which he does not._ Cinder reaffirmed. Something she'd begin to do almost incessantly as of late.

The point was that Uzumaki would not have fought with subtlety without finding a way to claim that he had beaten her. Victory over her was only half his goal. If he had not rubbed her nose in it then it was not victory to him.

There were three potential errors; she'd made a mistake in underestimating the leadership and tactical prowess of Ruby Rose, she'd erred in judging Roman's competency, or she'd miscalculated Roman's fear of her and he was moving to betray her prematurely.

She intended to find out which.

"The guards provided were more than sufficient, Roman. What was lacking was your ability to manage them."

Roman looked ready to crush the cigar with his teeth. He probably would have it he wouldn't have thought it a waste of a perfectly good cigar. Cinder did not relent, pushing him further.

"Not only did you fail to prevent them from infiltrating the event, you failed to silence them once they were revealed. Revealed in front of prospective and seasoned members alike, a majority of the latter being armed with high-grade firearms. Pray tell, how _did_ ten first-year students manage to evade you long enough not only for them to call for aid, but for that aid to arrive?"

"Yeah, they're brats, every last one of them. They've also spent the past five or six years training. I had five-hundred prospective recruits — most of which I couldn't use because they bolted like mice the second everything happened — and a hundred or so more of Adam's 'trained professionals'." Roman actually did the air quotes. "Let me tell you about those untrained, unwashed degenerates-"

"Enough, Roman," Cinder sighed, holding up her hand and motioning him to stop talking. "That wasn't what I was talking about. The capability of Adam's chosen aside, surely you and your aid would have been enough to handle them."

Roman grabbed his cigar in between two gloved fingers, tapping it with his other hand to shake off some of the ash. "Neo and I are the best pair you're going to find on this side of Vale. We had to pick our strikes, lay a trap, all that jazz. I could, and _did_ , handle two of them. Neo almost took on an entire team herself. We left the weakest of the Beacon brats to the White Fang. Who, if I'm allowed to add, were the only ones who weren't able to hack it."

"Roman…" Cinder massaged her eyes in her hand

"Hey, maybe it's the fact that they outnumbered the little shits. Neo and I were outnumbered and we won. Maybe fighting against the odds is the way to go."

"Roman!" Cinder flicked her gaze back to him, the fire in her eyes instantly sealing his mouth. "I do not require your snide remarks about the White Fang's incompetence. It is and has forever been known to me. What I asked was how you failed to take care of the problem once it was made known to you?"

"Like I said, ten on two aren't great odds when the ten are also packing firearms and dust. I had to chase them into an area they couldn't escape using what little I had. Once they were there, the plan was to pick them apart while the animals kept enough of them busy for Neo and me to do our goddamn jobs."

Roman's defiance was not something Cinder was willing to continue entertaining. With the click of her heel, she slowly began to stride towards him. Each and every impact of her heels on the concrete tolled a stony bell signaling disaster to Roman. His face was quick to turn from its indignant outrage to something much more submissive and subdued.

"Roman," She crooned, stroking his face with her gloved hand. The thief's eyes darted erratically, praying for a mercy she had no intention of giving. Her other hand shot to grab his face, holding it in place as she ignited her hand. Her semblance burned hot against his flesh. "Do not be glib with me. Am I understood?"

Roman's aura crackled and strained to protect him from her semblance. It was a battle which it was quickly losing. The third nodded frantically, his eyes begging for her cessation. She granted it, but only after squeezing her hands tighter and throwing him backwards, his cigar falling to the ground. As Roman staggered and grasped his face, regarding her with fear and hatred.

 _Good._ Was Cinder's succinct and sole thought on his reaction. Roman should fear her. He had been far gone from the subordination she expected from him in this conversation. It would not do for him to begin contemplating ideas of rebellion. She still had need of the thief and his little companion.

For now.

Only Cinder had begun to suspect that Roman was already on the hunt for a new master to hold his leash. His incompetence this night had been too great for what she expected of him. Or maybe she had overestimated him.

"Roman?" She asked with a saccharine voice. "You wouldn't be thinking of betraying me? Would you?'

There were many situations in which tact and poise could earn you answers you would not find otherwise. Of course, that didn't mean directness didn't have its place. Skilled liars such as Roman Torchwick would premeditate lies as intricate and expansive as a spider's web. Trying to navigate a labyrinth they had built in advance would do nothing but get one lost without the smallest clue of where the truth actually lay. With those types, it was better to catch them before they had time to prepare their lies.

Or failing that, attack them directly.

"Betray you?" Roman asked with sarcastic endearment. A smolder in her eye caused his mood to do the same. "You know I'd betray you if I could. I can't."

"One can never be too cautious, Roman. Maybe you found some criminal to join in arms against me."

"If there was any criminal in Vale you thought I could team up with to kill you, they'd be dead or taking my place."

 _True._ Cinder easily admitted. Although Roman had failed her tonight, he was still her best option moving forward. The criminal underbelly of Vale possessed nothing that could threaten her.

"Perhaps you decided it was time to reconcile with Beacon? I've heard of your… past with them."

Roman spat on the ground in a vehement rage. Even though it was her tongue from which the idea had sprung forth, the thief felt the need to forcibly cleanse his own palette of the idea.

"First off — no. It would take a hell of a lot more than the threat of death to chase me into Beacon's embrace. Secondly — if I wanted to join up with Beacon so they could keep me safe — and that's assuming I could even broker that kind of deal — I don't think Neo would have almost turned on of their students into a kebab."

 _Another good point._ Cinder was more reluctant to concede this time. The student, Sky Lark, had been rushed into critical care upon returning to Beacon according to a scroll message from Emerald. Beacon would be unlikely to broker a deal with someone who had assaulted and harmed one of theirs so severely.

More pertinent to her fears, neither would Uzumaki.

"Mmmmm… I will choose to believe you. For now." Cinder added. It wouldn't do for Roman to feel he could get as comfortable with her as he had been tonight.

"Gee, forgive me if I can't hide how ecstatic that makes me," Roman grumbled. It was snarky, but with the appropriate amount of dejectedness.

Enough for her to know he was a licked mutt.

"I will. Now unless you have failed me in some other way, I intend to make my way back to Beacon to get what little rest I can before classes in the morning."

When Roman failed to respond, Cinder took that to mean that he had nothing more to report and turned to leave. Three clicks of her heels echoing through the warehouse were all that was heard before she stopped. She didn't look back to Roman when she asked him one last question.

"Any results on the investigation into Uzumaki?"

"Nothing from the newspaper drive. No one's ever seen the guy before Beacon. I've hit up contacts in all the kingdoms and a few dozen border-towns as well. Not a peep. I'm not sure the guy existed before he enrolled at Beacon. Maybe he sprung out of the ground like a mushroom."

"Maybe…" She answered absentmindedly. Half a minute passed before the steady beat of her heels resumed on the concrete.

Maybe he did appear from nothing.

* * *

It took a lot to frustrate Pyrrha Nikos.

She had experience dealing with people trying to get under her skin. A lot of it. When people began to realize they couldn't beat her outright their natural conclusion was to try and fluster her into a state where they could. The first few times it did have an effect, she'd been inexperienced to jeers and taunts before then. Her competitive nature did what it always did and assessed that weakness as a problem, motivating her to find a solution and implementing it without much of a second thought. Aside from the boiling frustration of being idol-worshipped that caused her to move to Vale, there wasn't typically anything that could frustrate her any longer.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, her leader was anything but typical.

Their classes had finished for the day, and Pyrrha expected to be feeling an entirely different type of frustration with her leader at this point. She had expected Naruto to be on a straight-lined warpath towards RWBY. She had joined Nora the previous night both to provide emotional support for their sister team, but also to serve as a last line of defense should their ambassador of peace fail.

When Ren asked for a chance to intercept their leader, neither Nora nor herself had a reason to say no. There also wasn't any reason she expected her teammate to succeed. It wasn't that she didn't trust him, she really did. Pyrrha had grown very fond of her entire team and would trust her back to any one of them in even the direst of situations. Stopping Naruto's fury at a leader needlessly endangering not only their team but their friends as well?

Could anyone blame her for thinking Ren's quest was doomed from the start?

And yet he'd succeeded. There had been no explosions of reprisal and rage. That didn't mean there was no fallout to speak of. Instead of a dressing down loud enough to be heard throughout all of Beacon, RWBY was given the cold shoulder.

In their first class of the day, Naruto separated himself from their group. He did the same in the second. With the reaction she'd expected him to have, simple separation should have been considered a mercy to be grateful for. Ruby didn't see it that way, becoming even glummer than she'd already been, which was unfortunately impressive. The normally unflappable Blake couldn't conceal her guilt for being the catalyst for the entire situation.

Even with Weiss and Yang being less affected than the other half of their team, it was still enough to drive Pyrrha to confront her partner. Though it was true that a cold war was a better result than she'd expected, it was still a far cry from peace. She'd felt compelled to do something.

He'd sat alone at a table, every student at Beacon giving him space at a table large enough to seat twelve comfortably. Naruto had looked so pensive that she'd almost felt guilty as she approached him. When she did muster her will to ask, there hadn't been a rebuttal she could give to his response.

" _I'm not sure what to do."_

He'd elaborated when she asked him to. For better or worse he didn't know how not to help people. Ren had convinced him off the path of brutal confrontation, and now he didn't know what to do. He'd attempted to teach all of them prudence in decision making when he'd been tasked with giving a lesson, they hadn't listened. When teaching didn't get the lesson across to Blake, he tried to attach more impact. That didn't work either. Now he wasn't sure what to do.

Naruto didn't want to hurt any of them. He was _willing_ to if it would keep them alive. Talking to Ren had made him question if escalating would have a positive or negative effect. Because he wasn't sure, he didn't want to talk to them. Until he had an answer her partner wasn't willing to risk being provoked into doing something he'd regret.

She sat with him for the rest of lunch, ready to offer support wherever she could. The rest of their team had joined them when they sat apart during their last class. Ruby looked even more distraught, thinking the lines were being drawn between the two teams. It wasn't like that at all. She'd send them a scroll message saying that, making Ruby perk up when she'd read it in class. It was short lived as Weiss chastised her partner the instant she caught her reading a text in class. RWBY was still RWBY at the end of the day.

They'd all agreed they wanted to help Naruto. RWBY, CRDL, and NNVR had joined together in that goal. Right now the best thing she could do was try and make sure he wasn't alone with his thoughts.

Of all the events of the day, there were none that would have led to her present frustration. She knew her partner was troubled in a way he wasn't ready to trust her with. That didn't make her happy — she wanted him to put his faith in her for a myriad of reasons — yet she'd accepted the road forward in the regard would be winding and long. She was upset for a much more simple reason.

"No more…" Ren pleaded. He was collapsed on his back, his chest heaving as his lungs tried to supply his body with much-needed oxygen. If someone were to say he looked like he'd been through nine rounds with an ursa major it would be praise. For the past two hours, they'd dealt with something much worse.

"You're such a whiner," Naruto rolled his eyes. They were at the usual track and field, all but one of them sweating profusely. "We're only a third of the way done. For your sake, I hope your exhaustion is some sort of bit to try and throw me off guard."

Ren's pained whimpering was clearly indicative that he had no grand machinations of a sneak attack. Naruto either didn't notice or, as Pyrrha was sure was actually the case, pretended not to.

"We go again in five. I know I'm asking a lot from you to hit me… once… in six hours. Such a lofty goal probably feels beyond what you are capable of," He nodded in grave understanding. "However! Know that I, your fearless leader, believe in your potential. The ladies of our team are exceptional and capable huntresses able to achieve anything they set their mind to… and Ren isn't bad either."

Ren mumbled something between his labored breaths she couldn't quite make out. She did hear the sounds 'uck' and 'oo'. It didn't take a mentalist to discern his intended message. Ren was even less one for profanity than Naruto on a normal day. Extenuating circumstances brought out all sorts of things in people.

"Always consider the ways in which a plan can go wrong while keeping in mind your path to success. If you lose sight of your goal, you risk wasting effort needlessly. If you pay no heed to the hurdles in life you're sure to find yourself in over your head without having planned for a path to victory. A purely hypothetical example would be a huntsman who managed to become such while lacking both power and stamina because he thought his technique would be enough to carry him. What a sad, misguided, arrogant individual that would be…"

Nora giggled as Ren snarled, unwilling to lift his head up from the grass.

"I think Ren is asking why we're sparring now?" Pyrrha liberally interpreted. "You haven't sparred with any of us since the beginning of the year." He actually had only ever sparred with her, though she left that unsaid.

Naruto gave his smarmy-sage nod. They'd all learned to recognize it as a precursor to his overplayed sarcastic humor. "I was told that I hadn't given my own team enough attention. Once I heard that my own team was lonely and neglected-"

"I never said that."

"I knew that I needed to step up as a proper leader. Nurturing-"

"Beating down." Ren corrected

"Directing-"

"Dictating," Nora said teasingly.

"And helping you reach your true potentials in any way I can." Naruto finished, heedless of the interruptions.

Pyrrha gave him a flat look. "And you thought annihilating us in a three on one spar was the best way to do that?"

"I did think you'd all put up a little more of a fight," Naruto admitted, his face shifting from pompousness to that of apology. Pyrrha's fingers moved about calculatedly, feeling she had a good grasp of where this was going. "I was of the belief that with the power of numbers you might manage to find a way to my level. Alas, it was not meant to be. Mine is a lonely existence. Condemned to always existing above-"

Naruto dodged left as a hammer made of iron dust swung itself down at his head from behind. Upon being dodged, the hammer flipped into a strike and swung at him from the side. It stopped, hitting an invisible barrier appearing half an inch from Naruto's open palm. Pyrrha gritted her teeth, forcing her semblance to hold its form.

Naruto chuckled, shattering the hammer into particles as he pushed it away.

Pyrrha clicked her tongue.

"The pack. It's a sad existence that I've grown to accept." Naruto finished. He held his face in his hands, making a sniffling noise as he made the fakest weeping noise she'd ever heard.

This was why Pyrrha was presently irked. For the past two hours, she had joined with Ren and Nora to bring their leader low. It turned out that Naruto was not only capable of defeating her, he could best her with the rest of her team on her side.

And he'd done it in the same joking, lackadaisical way he had handled her the first time they'd sparred.

He'd underestimated her less, that was a fact. Naruto hadn't let her put him in a situation like the one in Goodwitch's class. He stayed upright, light on his feet, and quick as a fox. They tried to pin him down and prevent movement to limit his evasive capability to that of his semblances. They succeeded once. He pushed them far enough away with his semblance to reset the field of battle entirely.

Two hours of nothing but defeat after defeat had done more than push the spartan's buttons. When Naruto had first beaten her it was the most amazing thing that she could not get enough of. Finding a way to surpass him had been her goal ever since. Despite the leaps and bounds, she felt the control of her semblance grow, the gap between them felt as unchanging as ever. As she grew, her partner's strength moved about the same.

Pyrrha had thought that he'd at least been putting forth his all when he'd screwed with her. After the first two hours, that idea was laughable.

"Seriously though, what's up Fearless Leader?" Nora asked. Her stamina surpassed Pyrrha's own. The sheen of a light sweat the only indicator that she had undergone any physical exertion. "You never throw down like this. What's the occasion?"

Naruto shrugged. "Missions are coming up soon. Can't hurt to be more prepared."

"Missions have been coming up for months," Pyrrha reminded him. "You thought about this now?"

Naruto sighed. It was the sound of an easily admitted defeat. "More that I wasn't sure how you all would fair against someone like Roman if we got separated."

Pyrrha knew it was something like that. The timing of their training was hard to miss. Part of it could have been ascribed to CRDL being absent. It didn't explain why Naruto had chosen to enter the fray instead of observing from afar.

In a way, his participation was a way of making it personal. Pyrrha was happy about that, only she wished it had happened under happier circumstances.

"If you want us to be stronger than you should teach me my freakin super move already!" Nora pouted, poking her leader's arm, hoping that the annoyance of it would make him relent.

"Makes sense to me." Amazingly, it worked.

Nora looked liked her birthday had come bundled together with a full-course pancake breakfast. Pyrrha could see her eyes literally sparkle, the space around them illuminated by the brightness of her excitement.

"Really?! You're serious?! No joke?! Oh, this better not be a joke!"

Naruto chuckled. Nora accosted him, begging to know what she was going to learn without actually giving him time to answer. It was a strange thing to see with everything that had happened.

It was obvious her partner was still trying to figure out how to deal with what happened. What was even more visible was that Naruto cared for Nora, for all of them. He'd seen Sky get hurt and immediately thought of his team. He hadn't been so straightforward about anything he'd felt. Not since that time.

During the beginning of the school year, he quickly learned to hold them all at an arm's length. He'd broken down in front of them, crying as the weight of a past he tried to share threatened to crush him. It was the weakest any of them had ever seen him. It might be the most he ever let any of them in.

It was something that had Pyrrha worried for weeks. Just as the distance between the two of their abilities seemed static, so too did the distance he kept in their relationships. She'd seen Cardinal slowly push into the defensive membrane Naruto kept up as a wall. She was… understandably jealous of the other team.

She'd sought to replicate their success by using the same means. With the combined efforts of Ren, Nora, and herself, they were able to get closer by removing distance. Instead of saying they wanted to be his friend or be a team they did whatever they could to make those things the case. Naruto hadn't minded doing the actions that a team would do, nor had they been anything other than friends to another.

They didn't have the titles yet, that was all. Watching Nora pester him like a daughter would her father, Pyrrha felt like it might soon be on the horizon.

"Kami, simmer down," Naruto grabbed the hyperactive girl by the cranium to anchor her in place. Nora spent her energy vibrating in place, her excitement not even remotely dissipated. "Does this thing have an off switch?"

"I have not been able to find one in an entire decade," Ren attempted to lift his head off the grass, made it about an inch, and then let it fall back to the ground. "With everything you'd done today, I wouldn't tell you if I had, making my lack of knowledge moot."

"Bastard. You actually put me on the back foot last night. Consider this- Nora, would you- please just- kami- stop!" Nora pulled Naruto's attention back to her with the high frequency of her movement. Obeying his request, Nora stopped vibrating. With nowhere else for her energy to go, her eyes widened like they were trying to see what Naruto was trying to show her before he even did it.

Pyrrha giggled. This was her team. She hadn't known what to expect when she left Mistral to escape her fame. She'd hoped to find someone who wouldn't judge her. That was all.

She'd gotten something much better.

"Showmeshowmeshowmeshowmeshowme." Nora continued to say over and over again, not pausing for breath in the slightest. Pyrrha was concerned when the excited girl's face started turning blue.

A fear Naruto shared. "Fine, fine, I'll show you! Please, for the love of kami, _calm down_!"

Nora stood perfectly straight and saluted Naruto as if he was an Atlesian general. Pyrrha didn't know what part of the action Nora interpreted as calming down. Naruto took what he could get, happy to settle if it meant she'd quiet down.

"I was a little bit stumped with you at first. I originally thought of teaching you some lightning techniques from some other people I knew with semblances like that," Nora's face lit up like a one-hundred-watt bulb. "But I didn't think you'd be able to handle them," That someone then flipped the switch off. "So I decided on something a little more simple."

"Simple?" Ren asked. "You said that her technique was dependant on me learning to control mine. That doesn't sound unduly easy."

"Is it some kind of combination technique?!" Nora asked ecstatically.

"No. As soon as Ren helps you with the initial bit of it I think you'll be able to do it by yourself afterwards."

Pyrrha had to muffle her laughter at the complexity of Nora's expression. The joy of getting an almost video game power-up warred with realizing it would not require a constant ritual with Ren to accomplish.

Ren interjected again. "I still do not understand where I come in. I have yet to master the technique either."

"Ehhhhh…" Naruto's voice trailed off unconvincingly. "You're close enough for what we need you to do."

Ren sighed. "I have a feeling I'm going to regret this; what exactly is it that you need me to do?"

Naruto took two fingers and reached out towards Nora, bringing them to rest on the dead center of her forehead with an audible tap.

"I just need a little help from you to open something up."

* * *

 **Brief Omake**

"O-open something up?" Nora stammered, a crimson blush stampeding through her cheeks.

"Yeah," Naruto answered easily. "You see I've got a bit too much juice in the tank. I wasn't sure if you'd be able to handle it-"

"Handle... it?"

"So the plan is that I'm going to have Ren help me control it."

"I'm going to help you?" Ren asked.

"Well, yeah. You have first-hand experience, Ren. You know I'm a bit... much for the people here."

Nora's eyes shot to her childhood friend, awaiting an immediate denial.

"You have a point. I don't think Nora would be able to handle how much energy you have without my help. It was too much for me the first time I saw it."

Pyrrha's face matched her hair at this point while Nora looked about ready to pass out.

"W-w-w-what are you going to do me?" Nora asked nervously, with a hint of something that almost sounded like anticipation to Naruto's ears.

"Well, the plan is I'm going to take some of what I have and give it to Ren," Ren nodded as if Naruto had said the most natural thing in the world. "Then Ren will make it a bit more manageable before he gives it to you."

Pyrrha could barely muster the courage to ask Ren. "And you're... okay with this?"

"Of course," Ren nodded. "I'd do anything for Nora. I've seen what Naruto has to offer. It's too much for any one of us to handle without guidance."

"So you're going to give it to Ren?" Nora asked Naruto. He nodded. "Then Ren is going to give it to me." Ren nodded.

"Like c-c-cu- sharing?" Pyrrha couldn't fully ask her question.

"Yeah!" Naruto brought his fist down on his open palm. "That's exactly it!"

"Once Naruto has given it to me, I'll attempt to share it with you. Hopefully, I'm able to handle such a big amount of-"

The two boys were incredibly concerned when Nora passed out on the spot. Her face was almost maroon when they rushed to help her, each preparing to provide CPR should it be necessary. In the end, the two logically concluded it was a simple case of heatstroke.

And there was no way in hell Pyrrha was going to say anything different.

* * *

 ** _OFNT — Fun for the whole family! People had complained that there wasn't any erotic content in the series yet. Well hey, I live to please._**

 ** _Moving on to analysis. This is made primarily to analyze the big decision of the chapter; Naruto not going after RWBY and (less importantly) Roman as of yet. I'm sure I'm going to get more than a few reviews going "This is stupid. Naruto should teach those RWBY girls a lesson they'll never forget.". This section is meant for you people and those who just love character analysis and philosophy. For those who don't like this analysis, I don't know why you'd want to read this, but here's the TLDR. Exploding on people isn't always (or ever, depending on your views) the best way to teach people. Naruto will go after Roman. Soon-TM_**

 ** _So why doesn't Naruto explode? I like to think Ren made some good points that will convince people, or at least make it believable, but let's break it down for the sake of it. Naruto adapted into someone who is willing to harm to help in this story because of necessity. Milea's death and Bastion's reaction left a huge scar on him that healed in an incredibly awkward way. He trained his villagers in a way more intense than the watered down nature of other villages, but less intense than his own childhood of training eight to fourteen hours a day most days._**

 ** _That establishes the difference between Naruto and Milea. He trained one way, she trained another. He would have been fine in that situation, she was not. The mind does interesting things with guilt. Naruto views himself as responsible for what happened to her because he was the one who decided how she and her team would train. If he'd trained them as he himself had been trained, would she have lived? Guilt makes many brains look for false equivalencies like that so the one feeling guilty can find a way to blame themself. Then again, you may think Naruto is guilty in that case. I don't. If he is guilty, I'd blame it more on not adequately securing the borders of the Maelstrom village to guarantee the safety of the genin doing missions in its vicinity._**

 ** _Naruto's guilt is largely based around a concept of training and preparedness. One must be adequately strong, smart, and prepared so that they can face what is to come. This comes down to another philosophical quandary; the bystander question. If I see someone drowning in a river, am I obligated to save them? In that situation, many might forgive me for not leaping into the water myself to help the drowning man. It is a well-documented statistic that drowning people often drag those untrained who are attempting to save them down to the depths with them. Of course, others may still condemn me for putting my own life above that of others._**

 ** _Let's take the danger out of the situation. What if somebody near me says "I can't swim", and then proceeds to begin walking into the ocean. Am I obligated to tell him "uhhh... don't?"? More people are likely to answer 'yes' to that question. Many would say I have a civic duty to make sure this moron (and let's assume they're stupid and not suicidal) doesn't walk into the ocean and kill themself. I don't intend to give my opinion on this debate, however it is obvious that Naruto would advocate for saving the person._**

 ** _The question at that point is how far is one obligated to go? How far is it moral to go? In this fic, Naruto has answered both those questions 'as far as necessary, within reason'. He balks in this chapter when Ren suggests he is harming them. Naruto does not want to cause other people pain in order to teach them. Naruto hates hurting people. The only example in this fic in which he'd done so was with Roman at the docks. He broke the ribs of the thief after said cigar-smoker had tried to blow up the people working for him. The only time Naruto has demonstrated a willingness to hurt people is when they've shown a complete lack of regard for the sanctity of human life._**

 ** _Ren's suggestion that addressing them as he had after the docks had caused them lasting harm impacted Naruto. He understood that RWBY would most likely go through a temporary pain that he hoped would leave a lasting impact. He expected his action to be similar to a spanking; you take your licks and the sting makes you remember not to say 'heck' in front of your parents. Yes, that did happen to me. I also said darn and had to wash my mouth out with soap. PSA: Soap is not tasty, don't eat tidepods._**

 ** _Naruto is not willing to accept that he might have hurt any of the members of RWBY in an irrevocable way. Worse, and even more important to the character, Naruto is unwilling to even humor the idea of someone getting hurt if it would in no way benefit them. He is willing to absorb their pain to teach them the lessons so they don't end up dying. He is not willing to yell at them for his own catharsis if he believes it will only make them more likely to fracture and fail in the field._**

 ** _That's all folks! See ya this Sunday for F &C. Peace!_**


	35. Rabbit or Cat?

**_Greetings and salutations! It turns out I was tragically right on the time I had allocated to writing. I struggled to fit two chapters of writing this week and barely managed one. This is the longest chapter I've written in some time, small consolation though it is. The engine of the main plot has slowly churned to life and we deal with the chess between Cinder, Ozpin, and soon to be Naruto._**

 ** _Is Velvet bestgirl? Possibly._**

 ** _P.S. Every time someone starts reading the beginning of my story I still want to jump off a bridge. Holy crap that needs a rewrite. I know I've said this before, it just doesn't go away._**

* * *

 **Chapter 33**

 **Rabbit or Cat?**

Ozpin had done his best to carefully choose his allies. The professors of Beacon had all earned his implicit trust at one point. They had served him, all of Remnant, and the students of Beacon Academy with diligence and distinction. James Ironwood had served with devotion to both him and his cause.

Ozpin reminded himself of that. It helped keep him calm as he repeated the same thing he'd told the man multiple hundreds of times in the past two days.

"They are trying to provoke you, James."

"To what end?!"

Ozpin sipped at his coffee. He'd answered that question already. Many times, in fact. It wasn't that James didn't know what he was going to say. The Atlesian general simply didn't want to accept it.

"I assume it's to create friction with the faunus. That is what young Miss Rose told us after all."

And what a surprise that had been. Ozpin has found himself awoken in the middle of the night by a request for assistance from the Vale Police Department. Large amounts of White Fang and huntsman were skirmishing in a warehouse district and such dangers were hazards they considered above their pay grade. Professor Goodwitch had agreed with them, having been the one dispatched to the scene to aid the endangered huntresses and huntsmen in training. Things on the ground had been quite dire — one of their own almost succumbing to an injury obtained in the altercation.

The young girl then reported that the infamous Roman Torchwick had spoken to a group of faunus and told them that Vale would undoubtedly name James Ironwood as being in charge of security for the upcoming Vytal Festival. An interesting boast when one considered there was absolutely no plans of that nature. It was odd then that James took the news so poorly. Of course, that might have been because the very idea of him being in charge of defense somehow helping the White Fang was itself offensive.

For their heroism, he'd given Ruby Rose and the rest of her team detention. Useful and timely as their information was the young girls should not have endangered themselves so readily unless authorized to do so. He'd originally been of the mind to give it to all of the students involved, the two from Haven Academy included. RWBY's collective insistence that he not was enough to dissuade him, the girls all being willing to double their detention to spare their friends. He informed them he would be doubling their detentions without actually doing so. He admired the girls' willingness to take responsibility; an important trait in young huntresses.

In addition, more than a month of detention with Glynda was likely too much for them to bear.

"I am telling you it must be a ruse. Our enemy knows I am equipped to handle any threat. This must be a misinformation campaign!"

"As impressive as your machines of war have become, I doubt _She_ fears them," Ozpin commented dryly.

"They empower our defenses." Ironwood inspired staunchly.

"That I do not deny. Everyone who sees your robotic soldiers knows Atlas is strengthening their defenses. By parading them around Vale as you have the question on the tip of every tongue is 'Why?'. What size is the storm that is coming to ravage our kingdom that Atlas must marshall such force?"

"Over ninety percent of Remnant is ruled by the grimm," James' reminder was as needless as it was curt. "I would think the answer to that question would be obvious."

"We have been at a near standstill with the grimm for decades. Our people were on the verge of peace and all you wish to do is remind them we are at war."

"We are at war!"

Ozpin drank his coffee once more. It calmed him while allowing some of the compressed tension in the air to diffuse.

"I know, James. It is a war we must win. It is a war waged against creatures who feed on our negativity. If there is any hope remaining, we will not find it in the cold embrace of mechanized warriors,"

Ozpin paused for a sip.

"People find warmth and security in huntsmen. To the common folk, they are heroes who will assuredly safeguard them from any danger. Which we know is not always the case," He quickly added as James opened his mouth to speak. The general reluctantly shut it, a feature of his hand motioning him to continue.

"It is a falsehood the people need — a falsehood _we_ need. We have long struggled to deal with the grimm with the state of things as they are."

"The Atlesian Paladins change the board entirely," James insisted. "They allow any trained human to pilot them, Oz. We wouldn't need to trust our defenses to something as inconsistent as huntsmen."

That was the focal point of a longstanding and equally unresolved debate between the two. James Ironwood saw many faults in the system of huntresses and huntsmen. To keep their objectivity, no kingdom was allowed to shackle the young warriors trained in their respective academies into public service. The students would chart their own course post-graduation. Individuals might settle down in a border town to serve as its protector, or maybe join the police force in rare instances.

There were those like team STRQ that chose to stay together after graduation. Also like STRQ, not many of those teams managed to stay together. Such groups would take missions from the online mission board provided to their scrolls by those who requested them. All of those requests were relayed through the CCTs, Remnant's beacons of communication located in each kingdom.

A huntsman or huntsmen teams could claim a mission through the app portal on their scroll. Once they did, adequate funding for the journey would be added to their account to make the journey from their location. There was a small grace period to see if a more local huntsman would take the job, thus saving time before the request could be fulfilled. It needed to be short, and so was. It wouldn't do to have huntsman waiting on standby too long when there were people desperately in need of their aid. Mission difficulty and urgency also helped with that, often changing the rate of pay for a job.

It was a complex system, completely and entirely reliant on the CCTs to keep the academies, huntsmen, and citizens in constant communication with one another. With only so many huntsmen in training able to graduate to become huntsmen, then factoring in those who died in the field, not to mention the not-unsubstantial handful that retired early due to the stress their job entailed… when one looked at it in that light, a standing military of soldiers that could much more easily be rotated in and out looked nothing short of a blessing.

But at the end of the day, a military was a military. While huntsmen and huntresses were heroes of the people, by and large, militaries were oft to carry public scorn. Atlas' subversion of the standard system by integrating their military deeper and deeper into the academy coupled with the headmaster also being said military's general had not gone unnoticed by those critical of such means. James was not oblivious to that fact.

Though it did feel like it at times.

"A large machine more than twice the size of a man armed with guns as large as a person on both arms begs a question; if this is what we must arm ourselves with on our home soil, what war is coming to our gates? I do not dispute your military has progressed tremendously James, but Vale is different than Atlas. While your army might invoke a sense of peace and security in your home, they frighten many here unused to such constructs. If the enemy seeks to inflame old wounds between Atlas and the faunus we must not let them."

James crossed his arms, putting up a barrier between himself and Ozpin. No matter how delicately he'd tried to put it, Ozpin knew a philosophy such as the one he'd just espoused was nothing short of an attack on James' way of life. It was natural for the general — his once student and long-time friend — to be defensive against it.

That made it all the more telling of their faith in one another when James dropped his cross-armed guard and nodded his head. Even if it was a bit sharp.

"I won't claim to understand the people of your kingdom better than you do. I may change my mind if we reach a point where we know more about why the White Fang supposedly wants me in power. I don't see a way that the defense I offer can somehow be outweighed by the negativity they _might_ cause," James stressed the word 'might'. "Regardless, this is all moot. I had not and do not intend to usurp you for the responsibility of security."

Ozpin smiled. "I never suspected you of doing so. All I wished to confirm was that we were of one mind on your armed forces. I am happy and willing to put them up in the spare rooms of Beacon or for them to stay on your airships. However, we must keep the ships themselves out of view of the people along with your mechanized war machine."

Ironwood tensed. Ozpin could feel his friend's momentary concession slip away. "You do not have sufficient docking space for me to land my ships in Beacon."

"I do not."

"Oz…"

He recognized his friend's warning. He ignored it. "We are at a student of aspiring huntsmen and huntresses. Our ranks include some of the strongest huntsmen in the land. We are protected within the walls of our city. How much safer will we be made by the addition of your gunships?"

"Those gunships represent an insurmountable threat to any grimm invasion," Ironwood's temper burned. "There are next to no ground-based grimm able to attack such heights and they have all been equipped to handle any amount of nevermore, griffins, of taijitus. Those ships represent the ability to unilaterally deal with the threat of grimm."

"Those ships represent the need to deal with a threat, grimm or otherwise. The presence of the instruments with which we wage war implies the need to wage it. We've been over this."

James was well past the point of simmering. The barely restrained anger clearly showed he was at a full boil. Ozpin wanted to sigh. He would have if James would not have found it patronizing.

"We will have to agree to disagree," James insisted firmly. The conversation was over and the subject closed. "I will refrain from any future demonstration of the Atlesian Knights or Paladins to the public under your advisement. My ships will stay where they are, ready to respond to any eventuality in which we might need them."

Ozpin didn't restrain his sigh that time, patronizing or no. The line separating whether it was because he couldn't or wouldn't had blurred over the past two days of arguing. James was a good man and a stubborn one too. Ozpin knew this concession was as good as he was going to get.

"That will be fine. Let's put this business behind us, shall we?" Ozpin extended an olive branch. James gladly accepted, his body relaxing with a heavy exhale as he finally took a seat in one of the chairs near the desk. "You had mentioned a new student that would be enrolling with us?"

"Two, actually," James corrected. "Penny Polendina and Ciel Soleil."

"Only two of them? What of the rest of their team?"

"Already attending. They've joined the mixed lectures of all of the temporary exchange students," James answered. "These two were delayed. There was... an incident with one of them some weeks ago. We wanted to take the time to make sure she wasn't suffering any adverse effects to an altercation she'd almost been involved in."

"Almost?" Ozpin asked curiously. "Our students are expected to get into difficult situations. I'm surprised a miss would cause you to pull your students from their coursework, no matter how near. Will the girls be alright?"

"Nothing to worry yourself over. One of them had some new Atlesian technology we are experimenting with," James waved the matter off. "There were some bizarre readings with a piece of prototype equipment she was using we wanted to test before she enrolled."

Ozpin kept a straight face, not allowing the small bizarraties he found in the situation to show on it. Why couldn't they test the equipment while the girl attended class? Even if it was her weapon she could easily be excused from combat until such s time where it became available to her again.

"I look forward to seeing their performances in class. I'm certain any students from your academy will avail themselves splendidly in the classes here."

Ozpin's offering of that pleasantry was the signing of an unspoken treaty. In it, he agreed to concede to James' personal opinion on the matter of the aerial armada and James did the same on the ground-based troops. They disagreed with one another on these matters to the core of their beings. Nothing he could say had any effect on James' opinion, nor had his student's council swayed him.

Agreement was less important than cooperation. Optimizing the path they took was undoubtedly important. Finding the perfect path meant nothing if they did not walk it together. They would need every ounce of strength they could muster if they were to defeat Salem.

Ozpin had once heard the saying that all it would take for the world to perish was for good men to do nothing. At that moment he prayed that his inaction was intelligent and not cowardly. He chastised himself for the foolishness of seeking help from a higher power.

He had all the power he needed in Beacon now. All he needed to do was to find a way to wield him.

* * *

"This sucks!"

Ruby was not happy with the state of affairs at their lunch table. Most of CRDL had joined them, Cardin being the exception. That was cool, great even. All of RWBY had given their approval to the boys to join their lunchroom clique officially.

Blake's consent didn't even need to be coerced!

"You're alive and unharmed, as is our leader. I don't think I could manage better given a hundred more attempts." Ren said calmly.

"I'd be surprised if you got it this good in a hundred tries. The fact that you got it in one?" Sky shared in Ren's surprise. "I was expecting to hear the reaming of RWBY from the bed they wouldn't let me leave."

"I think that had something to do with your real-life enactment of a pin cushion. You had one too many holes for the nurse to let you leave. We're lucky you only had time to get stuck once. I mean, unless you're into that. We don't kink-shame."

Sky rolled his eyes at Russel. "Snuff is weird enough. Who gets off to being the one snuffed?"

"Bro, don't kink-shame."

The two bantered back and forth while Dove chuckled, presiding over them like an older brother amused by his kid siblings squabbling. Ruby couldn't join them in joking about what had happened. She'd hardly been able to sleep in the two nights since.

"Are you not… upset with us?" Weiss asked, more reserved and cautious than ever. "It was our getting you involved that ended with Sky being hospitalized."

"I was pretty pissed off shortly after being stabbed," Sky admitted. Ruby felt her spirit sink to her ankles. "Got over it."

The simple and succinct way he said it made Ruby ask. "Why?"

"There were only three people I was pissed at in the first place," Help up a finger. "Cardin, because he risked our team to help you without thinking. Second is you," He raised a second finger. "For making a plan that went to hell so easily-"

Ruby felt her stomach somersault as guilt clawed everywhere it could reach inside her body.

"Until I decided to put it behind me. You were trying to keep you and yours safe," Sky didn't smile at her, nor did he frown. He merely looked like someone who understood why she'd done what she did, nothing more, nothing less. "Your planning needed work and you already know it. Cardin helped you out without asking questions because he owed you, which he now realizes was stupid. Getting angry at you both would be self-indulgence," Sky looked like he was finished before adding. "Dove's words, not mine."

"That's very mature of you." Pyrrha smiled.

"Or Dove." Nora grinned.

"Wisdom is not always finding the correct answer by your own methods. One who is wise will recognize rightness wherever it comes from." Dove told them like he was reciting verse.

Yang laughed. "I think I read that on a fortune cookie once."

"As did I," Yang burst out laughing at that, smashing her fist into the lunch table. Everyone's trays clattered against the wood from the force of the impact. "I took the lesson to heart and learned from that fortune cookie."

"Dove, you are so fucking lame." Russel groaned. "I'm embarrassed to be from the same kingdom as you."

"My mother would preach that greatness inspires contempt," Dove said jokingly. His smile didn't fully reach, his normally genial look taking a harsher and forced edge. "I am not of one mind with her on many things."

Weiss flashed a rueful smirk. "Your mother and my father would get along swimmingly."

Dove's normal smile returned like it had never left. "Not too well, I'm afraid. Your father rejected my mother's marriage proposal when I was thirteen or so."

"Your mom wanted to marry Weiss' dad?!" Ruby burst out, all other matters forgotten.

"Doubtful," Weiss sighed heavily, burying her face in between the fingers of her right hand as she massages her forehead. "Your mother was trying to arrange our marriage, I presume?"

"Naturally. What established family hasn't?"

Weiss gave a response not befitting of a Schnee heiress. It sounded like a grunt of agreement that morphed into a groan of agitation due to her inability to deny it.

"Naturally, she was declined. While our family is known in the upper circles, we're not at the level of stratosphere necessary to entertain ideas of courting a Schnee. Jacques unsurprisingly declined the proposal. She's had something of a petty rivalry with the Schnee patriarch ever since."

"She will need to get in line. With the way my father runs the company, it's a rather long one too."

Dove chortled at that. Ruby understood what they were saying, like the words and all, but the subject matter unbelievable. It all sounded like it was straight out of a movie. Political marriages? Family grudges?

"So you're some sort of rich kid?" Yang asked. "What empire are you the heir of?" She asked jokingly.

"None. I have an elder brother who will inherit Bronzewing Copper when — or if my mother ever believes he is ready. He is already a grown adult of twenty-three and she seems more than content to continue making all the decisions concerning the company."

"Why the hell aren't you named Copperwing then?" Russel asked.

Dove tutted, a small mocking smile plying at his lips. "Now I'm embarrassed to be near you. Copper is the key component of bronze, thus our family name."

"They're an older family with a great deal of tradition from what I understand," Pyrrha added.

"You're a rich bitch? Why haven't I heard of you? More importantly, why the hell did I have to buy you lunch the other day?"

"Because I bought your meals five times before that," Dove answered dryly. "That notwithstanding, I'm effectively in a state of disownment. My finances are precarious."

Blake joined the conversation on that statement. "You've been disowned?"

"Not entirely. It's something of a Bronzewing tradition, at least since our family's fall from grace."

"I had not heard of Bronzewing Copper until today," Ren confessed. "It must have been quite a fall."

Dove deliberated for a few seconds and then shook his head. "Not particularly. Like I said, we've been able to keep our finances in order. We've had more of a perception problem for the past few generations, or so I understand. Bronze armor and weaponry used to be the highest standard of huntsman and huntress equipment in Remnant. Now our market has shifted from predominantly military uses to more domestic pursuits. We still have pull and money abounding, largely due to our monopoly on copper.

"Copper is an essential metal in many parts of construction," Ren pointed out. "How does a monopoly on it not put you at the level of Weiss' family?"

"We're at war with the grimm. Some expect that we'll soon be at war with each other. Falling short of that, at least groups like the White Fang. Our family has long since transitioned from military ventures to domestic ones. In times of war, it is clear which of our two families would be raised above the other."

Weiss agreed. "If we ever do achieve peace it's possible the demand for copper will boom as more houses, power lines, and other infrastructure need be built. Dust would still be important, but the scarcity caused by its military use drives up prices greatly. The SDC would lose much of its influence in a society of peace."

"You'd still make more money in a year than most would their entire life." Sky pointed out.

"That's not exactly how our finances work… it's more technical. Our primary wealth is in the large controlling interest of the SDC and is not exactly in a state of liquidity. As acting chairman of the board of directors and standing CEO, my father-" Weiss paused, finally noticing the blend of disinterest and disbelief on Sky's face. A majority of the table didn't look any more receptive. "Not that you're wrong." She concluded, a small blush spreading through her cheeks.

"The princess here aside, what was that bit about you being disowned?" Sky asked, receiving a glare from Weiss for his troubles.

"As I said, not technically. I was unable to be married off in a merger and have thus been sent to Beacon Academy as something of a public relations campaign. My mother wishes to regain some of the Bronzewing's political pull by having her useless children become huntsmen."

"Useless? Did your mother really call you that?" Ruby asked. No mother should ever call their child useless. Summer wouldn't have. No matter what.

"I was not the heir and neither could I create a merger through marriage. Determined as she was to find some corner of the Bronzewing name that I could polish, my mother declared I would be a huntsman when I was nine after showing some small aptitude with the sword. My path has been set ever since."

It occurred to Ruby how different and alike Dove and Weiss were. Both of them were from wealth. Both had parents that expected them to advance the family name above all else. While their origins and the expectations placed upon them were similar, their paths here had been entirely different. Weiss had told them she had to fight her father to attend Beacon. Dove would have had to fight to avoid being a huntsman.

They were the same in how little warmth Ruby could feel from them towards their respective parent.

"Eh, don't bum yourself out over it big guy," Russel thumped his teammate on the shoulder. "You got us."

"I suppose you're right. I shouldn't curse my luck for being made a huntsman," Dove smiled with his trademark politeness. "My luck with teammates was so much worse."

"Fuck you!"

"If ever I'm asked to explain the concept of giving yourself a great injury to blind yourself to the pain of a lesser one, team selection will be my example."

"I'm with Russel here, fuck you." Sky seconded his teammate.

That was how things went with team CRDL. They'd swear, insult one another, and then stick together even closer. It was a lot different than what her team had done. Weiss had insulted her in the beginning before they grew close. With them it was like insulting each other was one of the ways they showed they _were_ close.

Boys were stupid.

"Back on topic; anyone got an idea on how to deal with Foxy?" Yang asked.

Ruby fell back to Remnant, her good cheer leaving as quickly as it came. "Is he not a part of the gang anymore?"

"Not really sure what you're talking about," Nora said. "We've been seeing more of our leader than ever. It's great!"

"We are to be training with him after our classes finish for the day," Dove told them casually.

"As are we," Ren added.

There was a brief silence. Sky had no reservations about breaking it. "What they're saying is that he's not avoiding us. He's avoiding you."

"Obviously," Weiss agreed readily. The ease that she admitted that with didn't do much for Ruby's mood. "We're not daft. I believe I can speak for most if not all of us when I say that this was a type of fallout we didn't expect."

"It's more merciful than I expected. That's for sure."

"Who is he to bestow mercy-" Weiss stopped herself. Her partner took a deep breath, resetting herself before she could say something she'd regret. "What I mean is I don't understand his course of action. I anticipated him venting his frustrations at us or potentially resorting to violence."

"A path he almost chose." Ren reminded her.

"At which point you stopped him from doing so," Weiss countered. "If he does not intend to resort to violence or fear to convey his message there are only two paths forward; either he attempts to convince us of the error of our ways verbally and we reconcile, or he condemns what we've done and severs ties. There is no need for this purgatory where we must fret about what he will or won't do."

"He cares about you all, I could tell. He's not sure what he should do and is having difficulty finding a way forward. Give him time."

Ren's words did make Ruby feel better. Maybe it was something that would sort itself out?

"There aren't multiple lines of thought to consider," Weiss adamantly stuck to her guns. "Either he speaks to us again or he doesn't. I'd personally prefer to know which it is so I can decide my own response."

Yang drummed the back of her spoon on the table. "We did a pretty crap job of keeping you all safe. I don't mind if he's mad at us — I get it if he is. All this waiting around and doing nothing is a real buzzkill though."

"Look," The tone of Sky's voice changed. In one word it was both sharp and accusatory. "I'm sure Naruto's stumped for the same reason I'm still pissed."

Dove's face lit up with acknowledgement that nobody else seemed to possess. "You did say you were mad at three people. You've only listed two."

"Probably should have said four since I'm most mad at myself," Sky admitted. "But you're making a close second."

He jabbed his fork at Blake before tucking back into his chicken breast. Her amber eyes narrowed, honing in on him.

"Why would you be mad at Blake?" Ruby instantly jumped into the line of fire. "It's not her fault you got hurt. If I'd have come up with a better plan-"

"If you'd have come up with a better plan than calling in all the backup you could, keeping it a non-combat op, and running away so the enemy would be forced to split up to find us then you would need to give up as a huntress and become a tactician for Atlas. Look, I don't want to talk about it right now,"

Sky stopped for a moment, setting his fork down on the plate as he breathed in. His knuckles were white. "We're alive and managed to get the information we set out for. Not going to call it a win, but it could have been worse."

"Yeah…" Russel agreed with a downcast expression. "I hear if a girl sticks you twice you never go back."

Sky grabbed his halberd, compressed down through mechashifting to fit at his side. "I'll stick the haft so far up your-"

"Whoa, dude. No homo."

Sky punched Russel hard enough to slam him into Dove. The larger CRDL member didn't budge.

"I am curious," The immovable Dove started. "What did we learn from our risky venture? We have yet to be debriefed on the information we gained."

Ruby smacked her forehead. She'd totally forgot! The past few days had been a blur of Ozpin, detention, and Naruto avoiding them combined with the usual class, homework, and training that she hadn't had time to even remember to tell them.

"I thought it was a recruitment drive," Blake answered quickly. "It wasn't."

Sky's face tightened. "It looked like one with the number of people they had. Were they planning on hitting the city?"

Blake shook her head. "Nothing like that," She paused and bit her lip. "Not yet, at least. They were unlocking the aura of all the faunus there."

"That's why we had to pull Sun and Blake out like we did. Better to try and evacuate them when they were in the crowd than waiting 'til they were center stage." Yang explained.

Sky agreed with a terse nod of the head. "We couldn't see into the warehouse from our crow's nest. How many do you think there were?"

"At least five hundred in the recruits section. Maybe fifty to seventy-five trained White Fang on guard and patrol." Blake answered.

"We managed to stop them from going through with it," Ruby added on immediately.

"For the most part," Weiss corrected. Ruby gave her a sulky glare. "They did succeed in unlocking the aura of one of the terrorists."

Blake immediately bristled. "That's not fair and you know it."

Weiss opened her mouth before calmly shutting it. She nodded, agreeing with her. Blake's edge softened, the accusatory sharpness there before now absent.

"Yeah… that was a great subtext conversation and all," Russel drawled. "But would you care to fill us in?"

Blake obliged. "The White Fang gathered at the event were incredibly moderate. Many- possibly even most of them didn't seem as violent as Roman wanted them to be."

"So they weren't okay with burning the city to the ground or murdering people? Sounds way too reasonable for the White Fang."

"The White Fang was made by faunus who felt they had nowhere else to go," Blake glowered at Sky. "I'm not defending their actions, not even a little. What I'm saying is that it makes sense for faunus who feel like they have nowhere else to go to try and hear them out."

"Because when I don't get my way the first people I listen to are dangerous terrorists." Sky agreed sarcastically.

"When no one else is listening to you it can feel like there isn't much of a choice."

Dove metaphorically stepped in between the two before they could escalate any further. "Though misguided, the faunus present at the White Fang did not seem to be hostile towards humans at present. We should not begrudge them for considering violent options if they don't choose to take them. We are the decisions we make, not the impulses we feel."

Russel groaned in pure agony. "Fucking hell, man. Give it a rest."

Ren put the conversation back on the rails. "To summarize; the White Fang is trying to recruit as many people as possible and is having difficulty doing so. Even still, they are unlocking the aura of those who might fight against them should they try anything drastic?" He questioned dubiously.

"That's the thing of it," Yang sighed, leaning forward and whispering. "They claimed that Ironwood guy was going to be in charge of Vale's defenses for the upcoming festival. The faunus there acted like it was Vale betraying them."

"From what I understand of Atlas faunus relations it practically is," Pyrrha said sadly.

"And however bad you're thinking it is I can promise you it's worse," Blake's face was somber. "There is no love between the faunus and Atlas because of how they've let the SDC get away with treating their workers."

Many pairs of eyes darted to Weiss for a rebuttal. She had none.

"So that's it? Problem solved?" Sky asked. "Roman can't recruit the moderates unless they get Ironwood into power. Ironwood obviously won't do it because you warned Ozpin about it. Case closed?"

"They'll find another way," Blake assured him. "Whatever Roman is doing with the White Fang is big. They won't stop until they achieve their goal."

"Lovely." Sky buries his head in his hands as he tried to massage away the oncoming migraine.

That was all anyone said for a few minutes. The lack of conversation was awkward and uncomfortable as each of them dwelled on what they should do and what would come next. Ruby didn't know what to say to get things to go back to normal. The conversation about Dove's crazy family looked safe compared to talking about the White Fang.

"Any of you guys have plans for the dance? Only two days until we get our dance on." Yang asked. Ruby wanted to hug her sister. The last thing they needed was another heavy topic.

Russel's groan made her think she may have chosen the heaviest topic imaginable for him. It did much to lighten Sky's mood as well. "Going stag. Every girl I asked shot me down."

"You asked every girl you saw too," Dove remarked. Ruby couldn't tell if he was teasing him or not. "present company notwithstanding."

His eyes lit up. "You're right! Would any of you-"

"Nope."

"No."

"Not a chance."

"I'm going with Ren."

"I'm… hoping to ask someone."

"I'm… uhhh… that's nice of you and all… but I'm not interested." Ruby was the last to finish.

"Wait, what?" Ren asked, turning to Nora.

Russel's body lost all signs of life as he collapsed hopelessly on the table."

"Six rejections in as many seconds," Sky sneered, ready to take his revenge for the earlier comments. "Cardin's gonna hate missing this."

"Where is he anyways?" Nora asked. "He usually eats lunch with everyone now."

"He's in town commissioning a shield," Dove answered.

Sky chuckled. "He's finally getting rid of that piece of scrap Naruto dug up for him?"

Ruby loved weapons, armor, and everything in between. She would leap to the defense of sword or shield regardless of their plainness.

Not that thing though. To call it a kiteshield would have been an offense to all kiteshields everywhere.

"His present shield instructor helped design him a mechashifting shield," Dove smiled at Pyrrha. She returned it. "He's taking the blueprints to a faunus smith in town."

Nora looked amused. "I wonder if he'll run into Velvet and Naruto. The two of them are going into town to place their own orders as well."

Dove frowned. "Cardin met Naruto at the bullhead docks this morning. I'm certain they're going together."

Ren also frowned. "Velvet asked me when Naruto would be available. She wanted an opportunity to meet up with him alone, presumably to ask about the dance."

Nobody talked as those with information tried to figure out what was going on. Ren was faster on the trigger than Dove, shaking his head as he massaged the bridge of his nose.

"Pyrrha?"

"What?" The redhead answered innocently.

Nora's face lit up as she burst out laughing. Tears streamed from her eyes as she banged the table. "You go, girl!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Pyrrha insisted. Ruby didn't believe her. She looked like the cat who had caught the canary.

"Poor Cardin," Dove chuckled. "In that situation, I can not imagine him having any fun."

* * *

Cardin was not having fun.

Let someone stab him or cut off his arm. Hell, he'd rather do sand laps than be subjected to his current role. What was Cardin's purpose? He was presently supposed to make sure a certain bunny couldn't tempt a certain fox to partake of her. Had he known that was to be his job he would never be here in the first place.

 _Damn you, Pyrrha._ Cardin swore. Not for the first time that day.

Not by a long shot.

"How have things been going with your team?" Naruto asked Velvet as the three of them walked down the street. Cardin was exactly one-and-a-half paces behind them. He'd measured that out as the furthest he could get without Naruto stopping and drawing attention to him. Every time it happened Velvet gave him a look more baleful than the last.

"It's going well. We do missions all throughout the year, unlike the first years. It's mainly been a lot of that, training, and the few classes we still have."

Naruto brushed his hand through his hair. "That's a relief. I feel like we're being dragged from class to class with almost no time to actually train."

"That's a first year thing. Some of the students don't know how to fight while some aren't prepared for missions. Smaller and more split up classes based on skill would help, they just don't have the staff to do it."

Naruto grumbled something inaudible. Cardin got where he was coming from, even if he hadn't at the beginning of the year. All the hours spent learning about history and listening to that fat professor tell stories was time spent not training. His body was grateful for the rest, he just wished he could get it in a less useless setting.

Naruto regained himself soon after his bitching had ended. Cardin really wished he hadn't. "You excited Cardin?"

Velvet's brow furrowed. _Okay, I get there's bad blood between the two of us. But really? It's not my fault I'm here._ At least he didn't think so. Pyrrha had been awful eager to see him get a new shield… today. When he said he couldn't afford such a fancy thing she offered to pay for it herself. He thought that was some rich-taking-pity-on-the-poor thing. His pride quickly lost out to his desire for a shield that wasn't such a piece of shit.

No such luck. He was here to agitate the bunny girl and throw her off. A task he was accomplishing despite doing everything he possibly could to not do so. He'd even offered to leave as soon as he'd run into the two of them at the bullhead station in Beacon. Naruto had refused and Velvet hadn't said shit.

 _Grow a spine._ Cardin growled silently at Velvet. He didn't hate the girl but he didn't deserve her ire either. At least not for this.

"Yeah, I'm stoked," Cardin answered lifelessly. He couldn't be buggered with this day anymore.

If Naruto heard his lack of enthusiasm he kept it to himself. "New weapons are always a blast. No matter how old I get there's something special about holding a weapon that you've never seen before."

"You're seventeen, not thirty."

Naruto blinked. "And I've been doing this a lot longer than you already. Let me enjoy what I like."

Cardin chuckled and Naruto joined him. The blonde's laugh was slightly forced. The three of them continued walking and Cardin hoped the entire topic would be forgotten.

No such luck. "So why were you joining us today, Cardin?"

"Need to get a shield made." He answered as briefly as possible. The less she knew about his circumstances the better.

"And you wanted to get it done today?"

" _And you had to throw yourself in the middle of our date?"_ Cardin heard her message loud and clear.

"No. I offered to leave." He reminded her bluntly. She backed off a bit, quailing shyly.

 _Good._ Cardin thought. _If she could tone down the spite that'd be great._

And it looked like she was going to. That was until Naruto belly-flopped in the metaphorical pool and got them both drenched. "No need for that. Pyrrha asked me to help you out and that's what I'm gonna do."

"Pyrrha?" Velvet asked, icicles almost forming on her lips with the iciness she said the spartan's name. The momentary shyness was entirely abated.

Cardin would have waved for Naruto to stop if he didn't already know the idiot would be too dense to get it.

"Yeah. She heard we were going to Smith's and asked if Cardin could tag along."

"Of course she did," Velvet smiled. Cardin could hear her internal screams through the flash of brilliantly white teeth.

"I figured the more the merrier."

"Of course you did," Cardin groaned. Why did he have to be Cardin Winchester right now?

As they made their way through the crowded streets Cardin eventually got his wish. It was then he was reminded of the stories his grandfather would tell him about genies. The bad guy in those stories would always lose because of a poorly worded wish. He should have worded his prayers to god more carefully.

Naruto did leave him behind as he'd hoped. The important detail was that he left him behind with Velvet instead of taking her with him. The blonde left them to get everyone drinks for the oddly warm autumn day.

It was the hottest thing to deal with at the moment. That would be the flamingo frustrated bunny. "You jerk!"

"This is not even close to being my fault," Cardin responded stoically. He could get why she was upset but it sure as hell wasn't anything he did. "Blame Pyrrha."

"I'm blaming you both!" She jabbed a finger into his solar plexus. "Why'd you agree to it?!"

"Pyrrha said she asked Naruto to take me to a smith he trusted. She then said he said yes. I didn't do a background check after that, sue me."

Velvet looks more than ready to oblige and take him to court. If she was pissed off about the bullying he'd have folded like a lawn chair. He'd been an asshat, no two ways about it. Par for the course of his shitty luck it wasn't the thing he'd actually done wrong that she was angry about. She was mad she might miss the opportunity to get the fox to paw around the bunny's burrow. Which, once more, he'd like to state was in no way his fault.

Velvet acquiesced with that fact showing the most extreme of reluctance. "Fine. I need to speak to him before we get on the bullhead to Beacon. So before then-"

"I'll make myself scarce." Cardin finished for her. He'd already tried to earlier, except Naruto hadn't taken the hint. _I'll just say I need to drop a deuce or something._

With a bargain struck, the two of them waited in silence for Naruto to return. He did, bearing three bottles of water that probably cost three lien a piece. Velvet has simmered down enough that Cardin only contemplated if his bottle was enough to drown himself in for a couple of seconds. He now understood why playing the third wheel to a date sucked ass.

* * *

The Nikos Nation had declared outright aggression on the Holy Kingdom of Scarlatina. It was corrupt, unjust, and plain bitchy to boot! If Pyrrha wanted to ask him to the dance she should have asked him. She lived with him for frick's sake!

 _I forced myself to get over my shyness! I mean… Coco may have helped… aaaggh whatever! I'll remember this, Pyrrha Nikos. You will rue the day you declared outright war upon me!_

That's what her dark fantasies were at the moment. In reality, Velvet doubted she'd have the confidence to do anything like that. Even asking him to the dance today had been something Coco practically forced her into and even now she was losing her nerve.

The tinkle of a store door's welcoming bells brought her back to reality along with the peak of Naruto's voice. "Afternoon, Smith."

"That you, kid?" A gruff voice called out from behind the front counter. It was actually further back than that, the ram faunus not actually at the counter itself.

"You say that like I'm the only student that comes here."

"You are," Smith answered. "And Velv. She here?"

"Good afternoon, Smith." Velvet projected her normally tiny voice with a smile on her lips. She liked Smith. He never talked much, but she thought he spared a few more words for her than anyone else she'd seen in the shop.

She could tell Smith was moving because the floorboards started creaking as they struggled to accommodate his immensity. She wondered how he navigated through a shop so packed and tiny without knocking things over. When he did emerge from the odorless doorway that led to his workshop he had to bend down to clear it.

"Good to see you, Velv." The hulk of a man said with what she'd learned to recognize as a smile. It was only one side of his mouth tightening slightly upward, yet she knew it was as much of an expression of joy as she'd ever seen him make.

"Good to see you too. I'm hoping you won't take your's back after you know why I'm here."

"Bullets?" Smith asked. She nodded. "Ma always said there's no work beneath anyone. I'll make your leader's bullets."

Velvet smiled and bowed her head in gratitude. Smith harrumphed at the gesture as he scratched the order down on a piece of paper with nothing more than his soot-covered finger. It was a blunt instrument for a job as precise as writing, but the man seemed content with its legibility.

"You have my order ready?" Naruto asked once he was sure their exchange had finished.

Smith grunted. "You have the rush pay?"

"Have a little faith," Naruto chuckled as he reached into his satchel.

"You'll get it once you've earned it."

Smith thumbed through the lien bills Naruto passed over to him. After he'd confirmed the correct amount he slapped the register so black it looked like it was made of cast iron. A drawer popped out and he deposited the bills without reaching for change.

"Speaking of earning things, you've got your aura. That's new."

Velvet didn't know how Naruto knew that. Aura wasn't something you could see with the naked eye. It quickly became clear he'd been right in his assessment. Smith had been like a slow lumbering bear throughout the conversation. He'd moved from place to place to accomplish what he needed while conversing only what was necessary. The first time he stopped was when Naruto spoke those words.

"It is." Was all he replied before reaching under his counter. Smith deposited a box of the same specially shaped kunai Naruto had ordered the first time she had come with him. "You lose all the ones I made already?"

"Those were for personal use. I've got a few whelps that seem to love sticking their heads into lion's mouth. I'm hoping these will keep them safe."

"Mmmm," Was Smith's reply. It was a brief response even for him.

"We got one more order of business for ya," Naruto said as he slapped Cardin forward. The boy glared at him and rubbed his back where he'd been hit before withdrawing his scroll to show the design to Smith.

Smith took a look at the scroll. His mammoth fingers occasionally dragged up or down as he looked through the specifications. After a few minutes, Smith grunted.

"Mechashifting ain't my best," Velvet could see a not so small portion of Cardin die inside. "But I can make it."

Cardin could barely contain his relief. Velvet began to consider that he was probably telling the truth when he said he didn't want to be here. It wasn't that she didn't trust him… no, it was exactly that. He'd been awful to her at the beginning of the year. She'd taken it silently, knowing if it wasn't her it might be some other faunus who couldn't handle it. Regardless of how much Naruto claimed he changed it was not a good first, second, and thirtieth impression.

"How much?"

"Twenty-thousand."

The rest of Cardin died at that moment. Velvet thought she saw the translucent silhouette of his soul leaving his body. Velvet had sympathy for him despite what had happened today and earlier in the year between them. Huntsmen's weapons were often pricy. When you got into mechashifting it shot up like someone like a firework that's dude had been lit.

Mechashifting was more complicated than people gave it credit for. Every weapon that did so had to meet a few criteria. Firstly they needed to be able to actually mechashift. That meant having a few to massive numbers of moving parts in your weapon.

Secondly, you needed them to be durable. That was obviously a standard with all weapons, only the need to mechashift made it all the more difficult, and therefore more expensive. All those tiny moving parts had to be insulated and durable so that the force from repeated impacts wouldn't destroy them or otherwise compromise their functions.

Thirdly they needed to be fast. You did not have time to stand around for a slow mechashift when someone was fighting you in close range. Whether your bow was becoming a sword or your lance changes into an axe it needed to get that transformation done fast.

That meant mechashifting weapons were frequently the huntsman equivalent of getting a car for your sixteenth birthday. Unless your family was loaded, students often didn't get their weapons until the year before they entered the academy.

"I don't have that kind of money," Cardin admitted with a curse.

Smith actually chuckled. "Course you don't."

Cardin didn't find amusement in Smith's amusement. She didn't expect him to. Who would in his shoes? What she expected even less was the myriad of emotions he went through immediately after.

First, there was the spark of realization, like he'd realized something he'd previously filed away as inconsequential. After that was the conflagration of unfettered aggravation. Whatever he realized did not fill him with anything that could be mistaken for joy. Finally, the CRDL leader showed resignation.

The face of a man who did not want to walk the path he was on, yet had no choice. "Somebody else is picking up the tab."

"Parents?"

"Dead."

"Sorry."

"Thanks."

Men truly needed few words to communicate sometimes.

"Who's paying? Smith asked, bowling past the previous topic.

Cardin winced and then glanced at her. He looked to be debating for a moment. Whatever his decision it made him grimace.

"The Nikos family."

Smith stares at him, as did she. "Reason?"

Cardin's wince evolved into a full-on flinch. "For… for services rendered."

"Services?" Velvet asked before Smith could.

"She… you've gotta understand — I didn't know what she meant."

"Hmmm?" Velvet tapped her foot like an impatient and disappointed mother.

"She said I'd owe her a mission sometime. She had someone she wanted me to bodyguard from an…" Cardin hesitated one last time before forcing the word out. "Interloper."

Velvet blinked twice. When she opened her eyes the third time she imagined they were on fire.

 _That manipulative red-headed tart!_

The audacity of that woman was unfathomable! Pyrrha _knew_ she'd managed to get up the nerve to ask Naruto before her so she resorted to sabotage?

The cold war had ended!

"Pyrrha chose you for a bodyguarding mission?" Naruto asked in disbelief. "What the hell? You think she'd choose me."

"You're an idiot," Smith stated bluntly.

Between Naruto's confusion, Velvet's indignation, Smith's amusement, and Cardin's total lack of desire to be where he was, most aspects of the emotional spectrum were covered.

Smith had no sense of tact. That or he enjoyed throwing wrenches. "You still want the shield?"

* * *

Cardin has almost made it to the point where being Cardin wouldn't suck quite so hard. They'd made their way to the bullhead, he'd excuses himself as previously agreed upon, and now he was heading to the dock after a satisfying deuce. It turned out his excuse wasn't entirely made up when he gave it.

When he saw Velvet and Naruto standing next to each other he couldn't help but get a little revenge for all the glares she'd put him through at the beginning of the day.

"How'd it go?" He called out.

Naruto turned to look at him, confusion evident on his face. "How'd what go?"

Now he was confused. "I mean what'd you say?" Naruto stared at him blankly. "Damnit man. What'd you say to-"

Cardin cut himself off as Velvet frantically waved him off. With that everything fell into place nice and easy.

 _She chickened out._

Cardin couldn't deny being disgusted with her timidity. If she didn't have the guts to grab the fox's tail then she had no one to blame but herself when Pyrrha eventually won out. This was their business and he shouldn't have jack to do with it.

But he owed Velvet.

"Hey Naruto," Cardin groaned for what felt like the tenth time that day. "Can you do me a solid?"

"What's up?"

"I'm dying of thirst here and I forgot my wallet. Could you grab me a drink?"

Naruto looked at him funny "The bullhead's arriving soon. Get something to drink when we get back."

"Come on man, I'm dying over here," Cardin made a show of pulling his collar and showing the small amount of sweat the heat had managed to pry out of him hoping it proved his point. "Seriously. Help me out."

"That's really not necessary," Velvet interjected.

"It's very necessary. Apparently." Cardin contradicted her.

Naruto seemed to recognize something was going on and nodded his head. "I'll get some water. Be back in five."

There was a vending machine no more than two minutes away. The fact that Naruto had given them as long as five minutes meant he actually had some idea of what was going on. Cardin could have spent the entire time in disbelief.

He wouldn't. Those five minutes were already spoken for.

"I get where you're coming from," Cardin smirked. "Asking a boy out is a lot scarier than fighting some glowing-red-eyed murder monster. Hell, you'd probably take ten grimm over this."

Velvet was able to blush and look furious at the same time. "Yes, okay! I'm a nervous wreck! I've never done this before!"

Cardin arched an eyebrow at her. "Wow, you really are desperate. Lay it all out to your ex-bully just like that. Seems real smart."

"Stop making fun of me!" Anger overtook her. She advanced straight at him and got in his face, standing up on her toes to do so. "Don't think for a second I let you bully me because I'm scared of you. Anyone on CFVY could take your entire team on by themself. The only reason I didn't throw you into a wall was because I knew you'd go bully someone else even harder because of it!"

Cardin clapped twice. "So you do have a spine. I'm impressed. I'd wondered if anything was holding you upright at all."

Velvet looked about two seconds away from slapping him. Maybe he should be nicer. There was probably a better way of doing this. He didn't know it and he didn't really care to figure it out. He wasn't going to waste time figuring out the best way to open a coconut when bashing it into a rock worked fine.

"Scared of being told no?" He asked. He wasn't sneering or jeering. He stared at her dead on and level-headed.

Velvet burst out. "Of course I am! The only other boy I liked was the one who braided my hair in second grade! He's the person I talk to most except for my team and if he doesn't like me and I ask him to the dance he might not talk to me again and why wouldn't that scare me to death?!"

"Naruto?" Cardin asked her with a snort. "Worst case scenario he'd tell you he didn't feel that way and move on with his life. I can't imagine him treating you any different because of it. You think he's going to drop you dead if he finds out you like him?"

"Maybe?!" She answered hysterically.

"Then he'd be a shit person and you'd be wasting your time on him," Velvet looked like he'd bludgeoned her over the head. "If he didn't feel the same way then he'd tell you that and keep things as normal as possible between you. If you make it so weird afterward that he has to bail, that's on you. Otherwise, it'd be his fault for being a heartless asshole. Do you think he's a heartless asshole?"

Velvet didn't do anything. Cardin didn't know how much time was passing but he wasn't going to budge. She needed to answer the question herself or it wouldn't matter what the hell he told her.

Eventually, she shook her head.

"Then you've got nothing to worry about."

Right on queue, the bullhead landed at the pickup spot. Cardin walked towards it without looking back.

"I'm taking this one. You two can get next whenever it comes," He waved a hand once over his shoulder. He could feel Velvet move behind him and he worried she would stop him. He was happy when she didn't. Cardin could feel her resolve forming without even looking.

He boarded the bullhead and was about to move to the seat when he paused. It ruined the whole not looking back thing he'd just pulled off so he was loathe to do it, but he felt it needed to be said.

"I don't know if letting me run over you was right or wrong," Cardin yelled out over the hum of the bullhead turbines. "I can tell you I think it's shit. Nobody changes their views unless they run into a wall they can't break through or a truth they can't withstand. If someone didn't set me straight I would have kept going off course until I fell off the map."

Cardin breathed deep and bellowed his parting shot.

"You're a rabbit, so stop being such a puss!"

Velvet's maroon cheeks and indignant expression were completely worth ruining his cool walk-away. He was probably going to pay for that later, but oh well.

He slapped the side of the bullhead. "Take us to Beacon."

The pilot craned his neck backward to look at him. "What about the dame?"

"See that blonde idiot over there?" Cardin pointed to Naruto who had made his way back. He'd only given them four minutes, the moron.

The pilot nodded.

"Bunny's about to take her shot. I'd rather not give her an audience."

The pilot grinned at him. And flipped some switches above his dead. "This is Oscar Niner-Niner requesting permission to takeoff."

"Oscar Niner-Niner, you are cleared for takeoff in two."

"No can do," The pilot shook his head. "Got a confession going on here and I'm not botching it for the lass on stupid launch protocol."

There was static over the radio for a few seconds. "Oscar Niner-Niner, you're cleared for takeoff, effective immediately."

* * *

 ** _The bro Oscar Niner-Niner! Some background on Dove, some more Velvet and Cardin as well. As far as the main plot we have Ozpin and Ironwood's conversation along with RWBY revealing what they learned at the docks finally. Those who read the 8 pages I wrote extra on pa+reon already knew, but I needed to clue the main story in too._**

 ** _Is Velvet bestgirl?_**

 ** _Will she win?_**

 ** _Will I pair Naruto with Blake?_**

 ** _Who knows?!_**

 ** _... I assume you know the answer to the last one. The quest to reconcile my hate of Blake in F &C will be an arduous one. I wanted to challenge myself to write both my favorite female on RWBY (Weiss) and my least favorite (Blake). Needed them to be on Jaune's team in that fic so I could focus on them without having as much character fatigue as I do in OFNT. It's hard to hit all these characters without the plot making a tortoise seem olympic. _**


	36. Cleaning House

_**Greeting and salutations. Sorry this took so long. Don't have much to say about it. It was a difficult chapter to get the tone right between the serious subject matter I still needed to address without going too far as to lose some of the glibness. Patrons will be getting a reward to make up for it, which I will be promptly posting information about as soon as I get this up.**_

 _ **Some post-analysis at the end for those who are interested.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 34**

 **Cleaning House**

Cardin was prepared for a wide spectrum of reactions from Velvet. All of them were some level of annoying and bad, with some maxing out on one end of the spectrum or another. What he had not prepared for was the reaction he did receive.

"Thankyou-thankyou-thankyou-thankyou!"

Being hugged while a rabbit-girl threw her arms around him was not on the list of expected outcomes. He'd had his team go ahead of him to class so he could make a call to check on the status of his shield. He felt some remorse about using Pyrrha's money when he didn't honor their 'deal'. He forgave himself for his transgressions on the account of the bitch intentionally leaving the exact terms of their deal vague.

If she ever needed him for a real body-guarding mission he'd pay his due then.

"I didn't do shit," Cardin insisted, attempting to wrench himself free from her forced embrace. He was pissed to find out that she was actually stronger than him. Thus, in her arms he remained. "I called you a wuss because you are. If you stopped being a pansy because of it, that's all on you."

Cardin's attempt to distance himself with that statement was rewarded with sparkling brown eyes looking up to him from the head positioned firmly against his chest. A girl pressed this close to his body might have done something if she wasn't thanking him for setting her up to score with another guy. The fact that she was a faunus — a race he'd viewed more like monsters than potential sexual conquests — did nothing to stop her warmth from hitting his body. Which, again, Cardin reminded himself was only because she might be getting smashed by their school's superstar tomorrow night.

 _Now I feel like a cuck._

He didn't really like Velvet. Even though he was learning to temper his hate of the faunus, that didn't mean the reactions cultivated over years upon years had disappeared overnight. He was doing — and had constantly needed to since he changed his views — his damndest to tempering his feelings towards the faunus. That fact didn't have anything to do with why he didn't like her. Mostly…

It was more that she reminded him of what he'd been doing when he first came to Beacon. Weird, considering what he'd been doing was bullying her to almost tears. Both of them were spending a lot of energy getting nothing done. He'd been wasting his time acting superior instead of actually getting better. She'd been wasting it hoping he'd realize the error of his ways or some shit. That was never going to happen until something, or someone slapped him in the face.

And it shouldn't have been Naruto. It should have been her.

He'd given her hell, she should have given it back. She was a coward, and he didn't respect that. She should have manned up and kicked his ass. If this deathtrap of a hug was any indication, she sure as shit could have. She should have had the balls to ask Naruto out like a normal fucking person. She didn't manage to do that either. At least not without his help.

He helped her when she didn't deserve it because he screwed with her when she didn't deserve it. Now they were square. That was that. They were even. He didn't need this pity-gratitude-whatever-the-hell-this-was hug.

"I still don't agree with you," Velvet drove a finger into his chest and pushed him away with it as her grip came to a merciful end. "But I forgive you."

Cardin was fine with that. He didn't expect the two of them to be buddies or some shit. If she thought they were square and he thought they were square, that was that. They were square.

"So you stole him from his own partner," Cardin allowed himself a small sneer. "I guess you're not a total puss or a rabbit. You're a dog."

It wasn't the most tactful thing Cardin could have said. That much was clear by the light pink blush that colored Velvet's cheeks. Cardin wasn't the most tactful of people either, so even if he were to realize his error now, he wouldn't give a shit.

"We're only going to the dance together." Velvet responded tartly.

Cardin could tell she wasn't over the moon about that. He was also willing to bet it was completely her fault. Probably went as far to ask Naruto to the dance and called it good when she got a yes.

 _Coward._

Cardin kept his thoughts to himself that time. "More than anyone else has managed. Puts you in the lead. And I'm sure Pyrrha knows it."

Velvet preened a little at his words. The smile she wore and the twinkle in her eyes was a reminder that he wasn't going to get any at the dance. Damn shame, too. There were some damn good looking girls at Beacon. He probably would have tried to smash Yang if he didn't think she'd literally smash him for trying. There was always Blake. His grandpa always said the quiet ones were the craziest in the sack. Her and Velvet had a similar body type now that he thought about it.

Except for the animal bits, of course. Blake was a human, and that was enough to keep his sword pointing in the right direction when thoughts like that came about. No latent racism to interfere with his compass needle pointing due north.

 _Did I just compare it to a needle?_ Cardin grimaced.

"Anyways," Velvet started, awkwardly shifting as she took a step back. "I wanted to come by and thank you. And I've done that… s-so."

"I'm amazed you can suck worse at ending a conversation than you do having one."

Velvet glowered at him, her bottom lip jutting out into a pout. "Being strong and being rude isn't the same thing. You do know that, right?"

"Same as meekness and goodness."

The rabbit faunus continued to glare at him.

Cardin didn't look away.

"I may have forgiven you, but that doesn't mean I like you."

Cardin chuckled. "Feeling's mutual."

In the contest of stares, it was Velvet who ceded ground. She looked away and gave a sad sigh. "I don't get you."

Cardin grunted and shrugged. He didn't really care if she got him, and class was starting soon. It was the last day before the dance too, which meant if he wanted any chance of getting some, he had to make a move on a girl ASAP. It didn't matter that she hadn't earned his curtness, he had shit to do. He didn't have time to talk to the bunny.

Right as Cardin started to walk away, Velvet stopped him by breaking their silent agreement to stay fucking silent.

"Why'd you do it?" She asked him. Cardin looked over his shoulder and arched an eyebrow at her. "Pyrrha, she's training you, isn't she? Why would you help me?"

Cardin scoffed. He couldn't help himself. It was a stupid question because he'd already answered it.

"I owed you, now I don't. That's it."

Velvet shook her head vigorously. "That's not it. She is training you. She offered to buy your shield. You owe her too, not just me."

Cardin started walking away. Velvet said something that he purposefully ignored. She didn't move to stop him.

He had an answer. Thing was that he didn't want to give it. Whatever happened in that dumbass romantic triangle had nothing to do with him.

Unfortunately.

* * *

"You dastard! You demon! You fiend!" Nora reprimanded her leader harshly. Directly into his ear too. "How dare you betray the one true ship that is Firefox!"

"I still don't think that name-"

Nora's neck whipped her head to face her partner. "Renny! So not the time!"

Ren wanted to sigh, or groan… probably both. If not for the continuous joke that was Nora's pairing name, then the complete confusion on his leader's face that made it clear he had no idea what was going on was enough to provoke both.

"Why are you so loud?" Naruto asked, slightly annoyed as he twisted his pinky finger in his ear canal.

"Velvet? _Velvet!?_ "

"She wanted someone to go to the dance with," Naruto answered nonchalantly as he took his seat in Port's class. "I figured I might as well say yes. Velvet's… been good to me," Naruto paused. "Besides, it's no skin off my back. No one else wanted to go to the dance with me."

Naruto was looking at the two of them on his right. To his left, Pyrrha's entire body convulsed.

Violently.

"I'm surprised," Ren spoke, doing his best to pretend he hadn't seen Pyrrha's reaction. "To hear you're taking Velvet to the dance, that is. I didn't think you were interested in dating."

If Naruto had been drinking water, Ren was certain he would have spit it out. Instead, he spluttered and choked on air.

" _Dating?!_ Kami, no! We're going as friends."

Ren stared blankly at him. Nora did the same. RDL, all of whom had been eavesdropping from behind, did the same.

"What?" Five voices sounded as one. Pyrrha was the lone bastion of silence, though her head h

Naruto blinked. "What?"

"Friends?" Ren asked, torn between disbelief and finding the situation all too easy to believe at the same time.

"Yeah?"

They all should have known better by this point. This was Naruto Uzumaki, after all.

Nora broke out into a wide grin, giggling like a madwoman. "That's our fearless leader."

Ren wore a small smile on his face. Naruto now knew he was out of the loop on something. He pressed Nora for information the giggling orange-head was not willing to give. Not even when he bribed her with pancakes. Pyrrha's head had turned towards Naruto, her cheek resting on her forearms. She too had donned a smile. It was a bemused smirk admonishing herself for her bout of panic. Nothing short of a full-blown confession would get through the personification of density that was their leader.

Ren wasn't even sure if that would do the trick.

Their team had settled into a routine of class, training, and a little bit of craziness from time to time. Cardinal was a daily part of that routine, having become the team they would practice with. Ren had nothing against them personally, not anymore, but thinking about it made the smile slowly fall from his face.

He had thought it would be RWBY.

The all-girl team sat on the other side of the class. Originally, Naruto had split off from their three-team assembly due to the docks. Pyrrha had followed him, though she made it clear she didn't fault RWBY. He'd followed Nora following Pyrrha shortly after, making their team whole again.

This time the cookie had crumbled in much the same way, with the exception being that they weren't all on RWBY's side this time. Regardless, Ren had stressed the importance of patience to RWBY and they were doing their best to listen. He knew that something had to give. Soon. Ruby wasn't taking this well, according to Yang. Blake's quest for the White Fang had ceased after what had befallen Sky. It was a nice chance for all of them to catch their breath.

But Ren knew it would start again.

"Greetings and good morning!" Port's voice boomed out as his waddling gait carried him in front of the class. "You can put your textbooks away. Today, you learn how to deal with grimm from a firsthand source!"

Ren wondered if Port suffered from convenient deafness, or was impervious to the groans of suffering that often emanated from his class

After their initial protest, the class settled down and prepared for the siege upon their conscious mind that was Port's droning storytelling. It was so pointless that even the normally studious Pyrrha didn't mind talking through it.

"Did you have anything planned for training today?" She at least gave Professor Port the courtesy of whispering.

"You all can do what you want," Naruto answered, flipping a page in his notebook back and forth out of boredom, or maybe restlessness. "I've got something to do so I won't be there. I've put it off longer than I should have already." Naruto added when it looked like Pyrrha might protest.

Pyrrha let it go, albeit reluctantly. "Fine. I had a special training program I wanted to force- I mean help Cardin through."

Pyrrha had said it softly, yet Cardin shivered behind her. Ren wasn't sure if he heard or if it was a sort of sixth sense for sensing danger that compelled him to do so.

If it was the second option, Cardin's fear was certainly earned. Later that day Pyrrha would treat his face like a church bell. With Akoúo̱ as her mallet, his teammate would go on to bash Cardin's face in so much that it started to resemble the tolling of a bell to tell the time.

Ren had a feeling it would be a long time before Cardin ever crossed Pyrrha Nikos again.

* * *

Naruto had a whole laundry list of things to get done that didn't seem to go down no matter how much work he did. Today he intended to cross a particular item off the list. One that had needed doing for some days now.

 _What happened to taking a vacation?_ Kurama yawned from his usual perch.

 _I didn't expect a bunch of kids to be chasing after terrorists in their spare hours._ Naruto groused without breaking his stride. He turned a corner in the windy dormitory halls of Beacon.

 _Are you an amnesiac?_ Kurama asked with dry amusement. _I think you spent most of your childhood dealing with either dictionary-definition terrorists or some other threat of terror._

Naruto could feel Gyūki's approval even though he didn't give it words. It annoyed him, and it probably shouldn't have. The fact of the matter was he felt stretched thin.

It was odd for Naruto to feel overwhelmed. Lately, it had felt like there was one thing after another demanding his attention. Being able to destroy mountains had its perks, but there were problems you couldn't punch out of existence.

As Naruto rounded the final corner to the out of service room he hoped that this wouldn't be one of those types of problems.

Quietly closing the door behind him, he did his usual sweep of the room. The last thing he needed was to land back on Ozpin's radar because he missed a new camera.

 _Is now the best time for this?_ Gyūki asked, ever the voice of caution.

Naruto rapped his fist twice on the wall, checking to see if anything had been added or removed. _I thought you'd be as annoyed as I was that it took me this long to get to it. You didn't like me leaving Cinder in play._

 _I don't._ Gyūki corrected. _But I doubt the two of them will do something irreversible in the next day. Why not spend the evening renting your dance attire? You don't intend to go in your sweats, do you?_

 _Give me some credit._

 _When it comes to you knowing what's going on with this dance I feel I've given you too much credit as it is._

Naruto rolled his eyes. Content the first wall was clear, he moved to the second.

 _Please tell me you have a plan._ Gyūki begged him after he'd almost finished inspecting the second wall.

 _Kami… of course I do._

 _Does that plan involve fighting?_ Kurama asked hopefully.

 _Or killing?!_ Shukaku added gleefully.

 _No and no_. Naruto put both of them out at once. _I think he was sending a message that he wanted to talk. I'm going to see what he has to say. That's it._

Shukaku whined at that. Talking didn't have the bloodshed he'd been hoping for. Kurama was different

He'd had been with him long enough to read between the lines. _And if you don't like it_? Kurama questioned him.

A smirk crept up Naruto's face. _Things don't always go to plan._

* * *

Roman was not a heavy sleeper. You didn't make it to your thirties as a career criminal sleeping like a log. You didn't always get the luxury of an idiot tripping over something or some other noisy warning that you were about to be attacked. Oftentimes you had either know it was coming ahead of time and be ready, or be able to tell when death was on the wind.

Roman woke up to find that death wasn't on the wind. It was in his chair.

"You know, I kind of hoped you'd take the hint," Death spoke with undisguised agitation. "I was screwing around the last time I fought the two of you. I thought I delivered that message well enough."

"Loud and clear."

"From where I'm sitting it doesn't look like you got the message."

Where he was sitting was Roman's desk. The one in this hideout anyways. He'd flipped the comfortable office chair around so that the desk braced its back, forcing an immaculately straight posture in the seat he so often leaned back in. Death was dressed in orange sweatpants and a black shirt with that damn orange swirl in the center.

He'd almost claimed his first victim too.

"Knocking out my partner wasn't necessary," Roman growled.

"And risk the two of you disappearing again? I don't think so."

He knew he was in a position that demanded deference, the brat could almost definitely kill him.

It wasn't enough to stop his rage from boiling over.

Neo was unconscious. The rise and fall of her chest showed she hadn't been killed, though only at the blond's discretion. She was lying limply on the tile at his feet, her wrist held hostage in case she did wake up. It was smart considering Neo could blink the two out of there like she had last time. It was dumb because Roman had practically been pulling teeth to make this meet happen.

They were at one of their hideouts. An abandoned building that used to be a family restaurant. The place got foreclosed when the family got the bright idea that business would continue on the same as it had been the first few months. Idiots. When the anticipatable slump in traffic happened, debt piled up and they shut the place down. The location was awful too, making it the perfect place to lie low or sleep off the previous night's misadventures. They'd each thrown a cot in the kitchen and called it good enough.

How the hell had this kid found them? How had he made it past the traps he'd placed in every entrance? Roman had too many damn questions about this brat.

It was time to get some answers.

"Since I woke up in my bed and not in a cell I'm guessing you've got something to ask." Roman sat up on the side of his cot, his body pointed towards the door.

"Funny, I was going to say the same to you."

Blue eyes watched him carefully, yet carelessly at the same time. Naruto was obviously trained and disciplined enough to keep his guard up at all times, but only barely. Those were the eyes of someone conditioned to look for threats even where he believed there was no chance one existed.

They weren't the eyes of a first year at Beacon.

"So you knew I spared the kids?"

Naruto snorted. "News got around about how screwed they were," His amusement quickly receded. "They should be dead."

"They're not, big thanks to me. That came at a great personal risk too. You know how hard it was trying to explain how I failed to catch ten kids with a few hundred people?"

Naruto focused on the latter part of his sentence. "You have someone you need to explain yourself to?"

It was Roman's turn to snort. "Kid, I'm flattered, really, but you think I'm running the show?"

"No," The fucking brat admitted bluntly. "If you were calling the shots my classmates would be dead."

"Or I wouldn't be doing this in the first place," Roman added. "Which is why I wanted to contact you."

"Hoping to get out from under your current boss?" Naruto chuckled.

"Less boss, more psychopath-who-will-kill-me-at-any-provocation."

"Sounds rough." The brat remarked glibly.

Kid didn't know the half of it.

"Is that why I'm here Roman? You want out of your current mob-contract and thought a first-year at Beacon was your best bet?"

Roman stared him down. "First off; we both know you are _not_ a first year."

Not a chance in hell. Roman has known that since their first fight. Now here the 'kid' was again, having taken out the stronger of their dynamic duo with his bloodthirsty fox draped around his neck like a scarf. He should have been giddy, scared, or nervous.

Naruto was all business with a dash of bemusement.

"Second, you're strong enough to get me out of this bind. Third, you've already shown you're willing to slum it with Remnant's less savory side."

Naruto frowned. "I don't recall us grabbing dinner and complaining about our nine to five."

"Ha ha, kid. If you hated lawbreakers with the same idealistically zealous passion of your peers I'd be in a cell. Neo doubly so — she approached you in the streets and you let her go again," Roman grinned slyly. "Even after she claimed your ass."

Naruto looked a lot less like death when he blushed like a teenager. "I was busy with something else."

"That's kinda the point, kid; we rank low enough to you that putting us in the back of a VPD cruiser isn't the only thing you think about when you see us."

Naruto didn't respond to that. Roman had half-expected a denial. He didn't get one, which made him all the more convinced he had pegged him right.

"You only got in our way at the docks because your friend jumped in to stop us. No way you planned for her to hold me hostage — a stupid decision if I've ever seen one, I might add-"

"Don't need to tell me twice…"

"And then you let Neo go again," Roman continued. "Why?"

"Too many civilians. The risk of collateral damage was too high if I engaged her there."

"Doesn't explain the first time." Roman leaned forward, turning his body to face Naruto directly.

The blond's eyes narrowed. "My focus was getting the other two out safely. Arresting the two of you was a secondary objective."

"Halfway through the fight you'd rounded up all the White Fang and your two animal companions were standing there gawking at us. Try again."

"I don't have to answer you." Naruto glared at him.

The fox that had been curled around his shoulders sprung to the ground. It wrapped itself up in in a circle with its own body, fangs bared in what Roman was sure was a sneer towards Neo's face.

"Then don't. I can put the pieces together myself, but don't threaten my partner."

Naruto's eyes flicked towards the fox with irritation. The fox looked to him, breathed deeply, and then exhaled. It reluctantly rose from its newfound position and oriented itself to face him without moving an inch away from Neo.

"Look, I kept those kids alive when I didn't have to. That should buy me a line of credit. If not for my generous meddling they'd be ten person shaped ornaments on cinder blocks bound for the bottom of Vale Harbor."

"And you'd be joining them," Naruto growled.

"Granted," Roman conceded. "And that's why I'm talking to you. If I cross you, I'll end up in a cell or worse. If I cross my employer, it's definitely worse."

Naruto shrugged. "Turn yourself in. I'm sure the police will keep you safe."

Roman burst out laughing. "The VPD? Really, kid? I've put enough of them on payroll or earned myself favors abounding with them over the year. Some might try and keep me safe, sure, but it only takes one person willing to sell to the highest bidder to turn that safe barred box into a shooting range."

Turning himself in was no different than suicide with someone else pulling the trigger. He'd have to take a nice old pass on that plan.

"You've said plenty of words, Roman. None of them tell me why I'm here."

This conversation was approaching the endgame. Naruto's impatience marked the fourth card, the turn. Now it was time for one more round of betting before the river.

"You suck at playing dumb, kid. You know exactly what I'm getting at."

Naruto knew he was asking for help. He didn't look happy or amused, nor disgusted. The supposed teenager looked reluctant. Not in the way a kid getting involved in a potential world-ending conspiracy should hesitate, rather the begrudging unwillingness a blue-collar worker had when he had to force himself out of bed at five-thirty in the morning on the command of a blaring alarm clock.

"I'm not so great at all this political maneuvering," Naruto confessed with a sigh. "Beginning to think I should take some time to study it. Seems like every other person I meet does it as an occupation."

It was Roman's turn to stay quiet. Responding to something like that would only derail the conversation further.

Not talking had its rewards. "You want me to take your employer out of commission."

"Got it in one."

Naruto gave a heavy sigh, massaging the lids of his eyes as he did so. Again, his mannerisms, body language, and everything else screamed exhaustion. It was not anything close to how Roman would expect someone in the kid's shoes to be acting.

"From what I've seen on the TV you're a bit of a big deal in Vale."

"Guilty," Roman agreed.

"And I'm trying to lie low-"

Roman guffawed. "Boy, that's a real knee-slapper. You? Lying low? I don't think there is a player in the game who isn't watching you with the keenest of interests."

"And your advice for that is to draw even more attention to myself by taking out some crime-lord?" Naruto drolled. "I know you don't actually care about what I want, but you're doing an awful job of selling this."

And now they moved to the river. The last card. "You really aren't a hustler, are you? If you were, you'd see that I'm one of the only people who _does_ care about what you want."

"Oh?" Naruto intoned, bemused. "And why's that?"

"Because making sure you get what you want by helping me is how I intend to live through this apocalypse. I joined up with this psychopath because she'd kill me and take my place if I didn't. Now my next mission might as well have 'suicide' written on the front of the brief. Making sure you want to help me is how I weather the storm. So trust me kid, I have a keen interest in keeping my finger on the pulse of exactly what you want."

"And I know that's keeping the people around you safe," Roman continued, not giving Naruto time to speak. "You saved that Black Fang cat, and you're here now because of what happened at the warehouses. Keeping all those kids safe is something you want. This person I'm working for? The plan I'm working towards? I don't know much about either, honestly, but what I do know is it sure as hell ain't good for the citizens of Vale, or the brats at Beacon."

"I notice you're not on the list of people it is bad for," Naruto noted coldly.

"If I kept my head down and did what I was told, yeah, I could probably live. Thing is, killing civilians isn't really my shtick."

Naruto regarded him with obvious disbelief. "You said you were a killer, Roman. I can tell as much by looking at you too. Don't try and deny it now."

"Never said anything to the contrary," Roman shook his head. It wasn't until that point that he realized his hat wasn't resting atop it as it usually would be. Of course it wouldn't, he'd been sleeping. He'd been so focused on Naruto that he hadn't realized until that point.

Roman didn't know if he was at the top of his game or hurtling towards disaster.

"Why would you care then?"

"Dead civilians are bad for business. No high-end criminal wants people running scared, not unless the city's protectors are too weak to take them on directly. With Beacon looming over us that is not even close to a possibility. We regulate ourselves and punish any upstart punks who start skipping rope with the status quo. In return, Beacon pretends they can't catch us for keeping things in check… your cat friend obviously excluded."

"Ozpin gives you a pass?" Naruto asked. For the first time this conversation he looked genuinely interested. It was fucking weird considering they'd already covered apocalypse level threats to the populous.

"Not explicitly. But if he was to have ten teams of graduates comb the city for a week, what the hell could we do? We have some huntsmen trained in our ranks — defectors or those who learned the ropes elsewhere — but we'd never be able to compete with Beacon in a slugfest. Thing is if we disappeared there'd be a new group within the month. They might not play as nice as we do too. Neither law enforcement or that old codger is willing to take the risk."

The blond hummed his understanding, the momentary spark of interest fading from his eyes. It was unnerving. Roman decided to drive the point home further.

"I'm not joking around, brat. My boss is going to turn Vale into one big frying pan and trust me, she's got the fire."

"I get it, I get it," Naruto insisted. Then he fucking yawned. _Yawned!_ "I'll look into it. No chance I'm going to take what you have to say at face value."

Roman started to lose his patience. "Don't underestimate her and what she can do. I'm not able to handle ten teams of huntsmen. Her? She'd find a way to put them all in shallow graves before moving on to the next. They already put a store-owner in the dirt because he wouldn't play ball anymore."

That got a reaction out of the bastard. "She's killed an innocent?"

That was what got him? He'd been talking about the end of the goddamn world and a little blood pushed him over the edge?

"He might not have had the cleanest of hands… He was an agent of the White Fang," Roman explained. "Fact was that Tuskon wanted out of this nonsense, couldn't stomach what they had him doing any longer. Bloke decided it was time to flee. Didn't even manage to pack up and make a break for it before she sent her minions to assassinate him."

Anger was an interesting thing. Everyone had a different way they got pissed off. Roman himself took tactile annoyance as his drink of choice. This guy? His rage bubbled like a scalding tar. Roman could easily discern that direct contact with Naruto's ire was not in the best interest of his health.

"Who is the next target?'

"Not who, where. We've been preparing for an attack on a Vale hub. Plenty of shops to destroy, and more importantly, civilians."

"How?" Naruto asked, his voice granite.

Roman answered immediately. "An old underground railway. We've been clearing and rebuilding it for the past month."

"Why?"

"She hasn't told me why."

And finally Roman lied. He knew why — to generate negativity. It would make Vale a bigger target for the grimm when Cinder's plans came into their final stage.

He wasn't going to tell Naruto that.

He was one of a very small list of people who had any idea what her goal was. He was also at the top of the list of people she'd expect to betray her. Huntsmen thwarting the attack could be explained by bad luck. Ozpin knowing why it happened? That had to come from the inner circle.

He'd rather the kid win and take Cinder out of play. Permanently. If he didn't, or couldn't, then Roman would be screwed. He wasn't willing to put all his eggs in the blond basket when there were still moves to be made. He wagered this was enough to get Uzumaki on his side. If he was right, revealing more was a needless risk.

And he was right. "Give me a name, give me a location, and I'll look into it," Naruto said stonily. He'd given the same words — that he'd 'look into it' — yet Roman could tell the difference between the two.

What he couldn't tell was what the hell the kid was on. "What do you mean, name?"

"Of your mafioso. Your crime boss. Give me a name and where I can find her, then I'll investigate. If she's the threat you say she is, I'll take care of it."

Roman couldn't believe it. Right then and there he felt like an idiot. This was the person he was running to for help? This moron?

Naruto really didn't know?

Roman bit back every instinct demanding that he respond with the most biting, condescending sarcasm he had available. The river had shown, and he'd won the pot. The only thing left was to make sure Naruto didn't fold and leave the table entirely.

"Cinder Fall, or at least that's what she goes by. Could be an alias for all I know. I thought you two knew each other."

The first emotion on Naruto's face was shock. It didn't fill Roman with confidence to see his would-be salvation so clearly out of the loop. The small 'o' shape of his lips was soon replaced with a terse frown.

"We do," Naruto admitted slowly. "I thought she was more nuisance than terrorist."

Roman laughed heartily at that. "Calling her a terrorist is giving groups like the White Fang too much credit. Give those degenerates a few million lien and the best they'd do is gather some people and guns and harass the local businesses with some half-baked ideology about equality. Cinder came in out of nowhere with her little helpers and had this city's criminal underworld in her pocket inside of a month. Once I was in her pocket she had me robbing dust, then selling it to turn a profit. Used that money to buy the White Fang. Bitch hasn't been here half a year and she already owns the local 'terrorists'."

Naruto didn't answer. He was quiet, contemplating, and Roman didn't dare interrupt him. This guy might not have known how to play the game, but there was a reason for that. You didn't need to develop your ability to solve problems when you could eradicate them. Roman viewed himself as a combination of strength and guile. Cinder was stronger and _maybe_ as smart.

Naruto? The two of them could probably talk circles around him. That only worked so long as the blond decided to keep things verbal. If he opted for a more physical approach? After fighting him, Roman had his doubts Cinder could handle it.

That was what he was counting on.

When Naruto did speak, it was the four words that confirmed Roman had the nuts. "I'll deal with Cinder."

 _Ahhh… how I've missed you, Lady Luck._

"I'm glad we could come to an arrangement," And what an understatement that was. "Any chance you could have that wrapped up by dinner? I have been dying to check out this new sushi place and I just haven't had the time with the schedule she's been giving me."

Lady Luck was as fickle as ever. That much was clear as Naruto shook his head. "No. I'll work on Cinder, but in the meantime, you'll need to keep up appearances."

"That was not what I was hoping to hear, kid."

"It's what you're getting," Naruto responded gruffly. The fox leaped from the ground and took its place around his shoulders.

Roman stood up from his cot. This was the problem with their power dynamic. It didn't matter how much better at stringing words together Roman was. If Naruto didn't want to do something, that was that. It was on him to change the brat's mind.

"Kid, Cinder is dangerous. She's smart, ruthless, and filled to the brim with determination. Don't make the mistake of underestimating her. "

"You keep calling me kid, Roman, but you're coming to _me_ for help," Naruto looked at him flatly. "You might think I'm a kid, but I'm not an idiot, and I'm not underestimating her. One way or another I'll stop whatever Cinder has planned. You have my word on that."

"Kill her and be done with it. Leave her face down in water under the bridge or she'll be back. Don't do it 'another' way."

Roman didn't like the way Naruto winced at the suggestion of killing Cinder. Her death was the only way he could go back to a normal life — the only way Neo could get back to a normal life.

"I said I'll deal with it. That means it's as good as dealt with," Naruto sighed before mumbling under his breath. "It's not the first time."

"Forgive me if the word of a first-year Beacon student doesn't fill me with confidence."

Naruto Uzumaki was an unknown and undefined quantity. The little he knew about the kid was that he was as strong as all hell and wanted to protect the innocent. The combination of those two things should have made for an easily manipulatable tool to pit against Cinder. He hadn't thought there would be this much pushback about taking a psychopathic mass-murderer-to-be out of the equation.

Was the kid too idealistic? That didn't fit at all. Naruto had tried to avoid fighting them at the docks. He'd only done so because an 'innocent' was in danger. He'd been more than content to let them make off with a huge shipment of dust despite being able to feed them their own asses without breaking a sweat. Roman had figured out it was because the kid wanted to lay low — possibly from old Oz, maybe the world as a whole.

"It should," Naruto's voice brought him out of his thoughts. "You came to me because you knew I could handle her. If you don't trust me, trust the part of you that's smart enough to figure that out."

 _I trust you to kick her ass. Maybe not even that. Handle her? Not on your life_.

"Whatever you say, boss," Roman smiled smugly.

It had the desired effect.

"If I'm ever your boss I'm going to need to stop and reevaluate my life decisions. I'll deal with this on my own… probably need to do something about Blake… damnit."

That was all the better for Roman. The less he had to do with this, the better. Naruto might be strong, but Cinder was far more than clever. If brawn didn't triumph over brain then he wanted to make sure little 'ol Cindy thought he was just the most loyal thief she could ask for. Not having to deal with Red and the gang would make his life a whole lot easier, regardless of what side he picked in the end.

He was glad to be a non-factor in whatever Naruto had planned. It made what was said next all the more unfortunate. "I'm going to need something from you."

"You know I'm happy to help," He wasn't.

Naruto laughed, sensing his reluctance. For all the flak he'd given the brat for being a bit of an idiot, his instincts were razor sharp at the strangest times.

"Nothing dangerous," The blond assures him. "I'm on a bit of a deadline for something and you looked like someone who could help me out."

Roman had no idea what the hell the kid was going on about until he explained himself. Once he did, Roman liked the brat a bit more.

The kid had good tastes.

* * *

Gyūki didn't believe in being smug when you were proven right. Ultimately, the better-than-thou attitude made it more likely whoever you'd proven wrong would dismiss and move on. He didn't like smugness because it got nothing done.

Even so, he found it difficult to contain himself.

 _I warned you Cinder was a threat._

Naruto grumbled, a full paper shopping bag in each hand. _I never said she wasn't a threat._

It was right before dusk. Dealing with Torchwick hadn't taken them long. The shopping afterward had occupied a much larger portion of their time. Gyūki had left him alone for most of that time. He could see that Naruto needed the time to process.

That time was over. _No, you treated her like she wasn't. And why? You knew she was dangerous the moment you saw her._

Naruto groaned, leaping over a hard to navigate pathway up and kicking off a tree to clear the winding trail entirely. The bags and their contents remained on his person the entire time.

 _I thought she was normal dangerous_.

 _Normal dangerous?_ Gyūki asked.

 _She's angry. We knew she was after the other half of that power. I thought the other half would be revenge against Ozpin, maybe try and assassinate a politician, that sort of thing._

 _Only an assassination. Normal dangerous things._ Kurama quipped with a smirk.

 _You know what I mean._ Naruto groused. _I thought her anger would be focused, directed. Or if it was explosive it would be small scale._

 _Not running a terrorist organization._ Gyūki finished.

 _Sounds less like she runs them and more like she recruited them._ Kurama corrected his fellow bijuu. _It's more impressive. Anyone could rise to the top of an organization they were a part of. She convinced the terrorists to side with her through bribery and mutual benefit. She even earned the bribe money using Torchwick._

 _She's clever. We shouldn't underestimate her. Which you are._ Gyūki added pointedly.

 _Not anymore. I'll spend more time on Cinder. She can't be ignored._

Gyūki vehemently disagreed. _Saying it like that proves you're taking her lightly. We should report her to Ozpin and be done with it._

 _You're willing to let someone else deal with her?_ Kurama asked incredulously. _She's the most interesting thing at this stupid school. We shouldn't let the old man take all the fun._

 _Fun?! This isn't about-_

 _Kami, give it a rest you two._ Their now mutual host moaned. _I'm dealing with Cinder like I'd already decided to weeks ago. Beyond that, we're not getting any more involved than we have to._

Gyūki backed off, willing to accept that for now. He was sure he'd be disagreeing with the means that Naruto employed to deal with the girl within a week. For now, it was best to hold his tongue, or technically his thoughts. Naruto getting involved in the world around him would help him continue to put down roots. Weird as it was, dealing with a terrorist to protect particular people in Remnant was a sign of emotional balance.

While his decision to not nag their host was surprising, it was nowhere near that of the normally lethargic fox deciding to exert himself in protest. _We know the White Fang is cooperating with Cinder. If your plan leaves them standing you know those stupid girls will be running into the terrorists' armory this time next week._

Naruto sighed, and Gyūki was compelled to agree with him. Whether Team RWBY thought they were invincible or all had a child's sense of danger assessment was semantical. Either way, they continued to throw themselves into danger. Sky's injury was most likely no more than a placation. Blake Belladonna would be back at it again eventually, dragging her entire team with her. The only variable was time.

It needed to be addressed before that variable became a definable quantity.

With that being the unhappy punctuation marking the end of their conversation, they came to a stop. Naruto glanced around. Looking, searching for anything that could possibly spot him. They were fifteen minutes outside of the walls of Vale and well into the forested area surrounding it. A place of cover and anonymity. As soon as he was content, his chakra surged.

The next moment they found themselves in what had once been their familiar cave. The humble abode had lost some of its hominess with the lack of time they'd spent there lately. Naruto had almost constantly used it for decompression after they started attending Beacon, and before that, they'd lived out of here. That they hadn't returned recently likely meant Naruto was improving. Either Beacon was causing him a tolerable amount of stress or was beginning to become the break they'd hoped it might be.

Terrorists, manipulative headmasters, and a young lady bent on rage-driven genocide made him think it was the first option.

The cave was silent except for the crinkling of the paper bags swaying in Naruto's hands. There was a tension in the air like a string stretched to the point where it was beginning to fray. In spite of the plot they'd uncovered, this was easily the most nervous any of them had been today.

Today was a test — a test they all suspected to have a specific outcome.

Naruto tossed the two bags in his hand towards the cave wall one after the other. One landed upright. The other fell over, spilling the books inside of it on the cave floor. Beginners guides on dancing of all things. The intermediate and advanced copies were in the other bag.

No, the feeling in the air that had caused Naruto's breath to catch as he lifted his hands was not because of the dance. A date he didn't consider a date and a dance was not enough to rile him, even if the blond might not look older than a teenager at present. Nor did the idea of not knowing how to dance even trigger the idea of embarrassment for Naruto.

Still, why be embarrassed if you could learn? Naruto had once been an expert of learning. While he never lacked in determination, he was never the smartest shinobi. As far as learning went, there were many far superior to him in their ability to digest information and develop their skills. Naruto's approach to learning was often unrefined.

Brute force had its own way of getting things done.

As Naruto's hands reached his midsection, he lifted his right elbow up. Slowly, carefully, worriedly, he lifted it until his right arm was horizontally flat. His two hands crossed to make a 't', their fingers fully extended. With the same care that he'd raised his elbow, Naruto curled his fingers inward until only his middle and pointers on each hand remained, still crossed into a 't'.

He breathed slow and deep.

His breath hitched.

He forced the rest of the breath down with the same vehemence one would a bitter draught of medicine.

Then he didn't hesitate. "Tajū Kage Bunshin no-"

Naruto collapsed to his knees. Kurama lept from Naruto's shoulders, landing with his usual litheness on the stone cave floor right before the blond emptied the contents of his stomach onto it. The retching noise was painful for all of them to hear. Not for what it was, but what it signified.

Another failure.

"Kuso!" Naruto swore, banging his fist into the ground. The cave shook, rattling from the force of the blow.

 _It's… it's to be expected._ Gyūki tried to console him. _The headaches have gone away. You're happier. You are getting bet_ -

"Not better enough," Naruto chuckled waterily. They all knew he was biting back tears. Failing here was hard on him.

 _It's just a jutsu, brat. Even with all the ones you can't use, we could still take any place off the map. We don't need-_

Naruto surged to his feet. "Tajū Kage Bunshin-"

He collapsed on the floor again. He vomited again. With the intensity of the first, there was little left in his stomach to be spilled on the stone.

 _Naruto-boy… stop thi-_

"Tajū Kag Bu-"

And he was back on the floor once more. This time, nothing came out. The only thing was the sound of his gagging and the smell of what he'd already done.

Neither of them had a chance to get a word in before Naruto staggered to his feet once more. "Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

It had been a long time since any of them had heard the popping sound of smoke as clone after clone appeared into existence. One after another — ten, twenty, thirty — copies of Naruto appeared in the sizable cave entrance. For the first time since Remnant, he'd done it.

He'd done it in a way that could never be used in combat. He hadn't addressed what his problems were, or why he couldn't use his jutsu. Naruto had done none of that. There had been an obstacle barring his path and he threw himself against it until he gave way.

It had worked this time. He broke through the obstacle. Next time the obstacle might be the obstacle that broke him.

"Kami, I can't believe it!" One of the clones said with a grin. "I haven't seen the boss in ages."

"Where the hell have you been?"

"What's going on, boss?"

"I never thought cave air could smell so good! Vomit aside, obviously."

The clones were understandably jubilant to be out and about. They weren't all separate personalities — they were Naruto — but there was some variance from clone to clone on what they were thinking or feeling.

"Sorry guys. I'd love to stand around and catch up, I just don't have the time."

There was some faux-groaning, some laughing, and all around good cheer to his statement. It was funny to see so many grinning clones looking back at them. It was odder to know that Naruto was returning it with one of the widest smiles he'd had in a long time.

Gyūki was sure this was bad for him. Naruto was a titan walking around a world of men and monster a literal world away from him in terms of power. He'd begun to think there was no problem he couldn't solve with the overwhelming force he commanded. That egoism — no matter how accurate in some ways — would lead him to underestimate a threat because he believed he could deal with it.

And it wouldn't be Naruto that paid the price. It would be the people of Remnant. That was not something Gyūki wanted.

"I've brought you all some books on Remnant's dancing," Naruto gestured towards the upright and spilled bags near the cave wall. "Figure it out. You've got until tomorrow evening."

"Aye-aye Cap'n," One of the clones said with a goofy grin and a sloppy salute.

"When'd you get so stoic?" Another asked. There was some outspoken assent to the question.

There was one clone that looked different. Serious. "Guys, real quick," The clone said solemnly, drawing the attention to him. "Before we get started, I wanna say… dibs on lead."

There was a mad scramble as clones started shouting and hollering to try and reserve their position as the male role for practice. The real Naruto shook his head, giving a small amused chuckle. These clones were summoned at the peak of his success. Clone emotions were a bit of an unstudied area, but it was possible the exaltation he'd felt from his first successful summon in Remnant had made the clones more chipper.

And that was a problem. This wasn't a success. Naruto had managed to bypass a problem that needed resolution. It was not something to celebrate or to feel giddy about. The reasons behind Naruto's inability to use his signature jutsu was something that needed to be thought about, reasoned through, and solved.

Instead, it was the same as the bile on the cave's floor. It went ignored as everyone found a way to work around it. Gyūki knew that couldn't last. Accommodating a problem was not solving it. He worried that Naruto was running out of time to learn that lesson.

Remnant might not have the time.

* * *

 ** _I'm sure many readers have already guessed by this point that Naruto could not use his own personal jutsu. A few chapters after the beginning, we finally know why this is a Rinnegan story. Giving Naruto all the powers and letting him loose is something of a peeve of mine, yet clearly, I've done it. Not for the sake of coolness, but for character._**

 ** _There are some obvious psychological implications to not being able to use one's own techniques. It implies a lack of satisfaction with oneself. It could mean that Naruto doesn't view himself worthy of using what he was once able to. It could mean that what has happened to him has left deeper scars than he is willing to admit. There are a few different reasons Naruto might have such a violent reaction to using his shadow clones, but it is a focal point of the story. I meandered around a bit to try and bring RWBY into the story, which I regret. It made this reveal come all the later and made the chapters seem dithering._**

 ** _Oh well. First fic, live and learn and all that._**

 ** _I want to make it clear that I do not think Naruto is an idiot. It came up a lot in this chapter with Roman, and not realizing that the whole Velvet thing is a date. Naruto solves things and deals with things in his own way. I brought the story back around to that near the end with him forcing through his mental barriers to use his shadow clones. Naruto doesn't want to think about zen Buddhist peace or the meaning of life. He's had a successful career by putting his all into each and every problem and finding solutions._**

 ** _Instead of lobbying the favor of political institutions to gather money to fund the building of a park, Naruto would more than likely go and build the park. This idea of lobbying for political favor is something he hasn't needed for most of his life. Naruto is not the best teacher anywhere in canon. Naruto leads by example. An example that people follow. I've hit that before, but it explains why wordsmithing is not his forte._**

 ** _You see this alot in IT. Some young kids can't understand why their grandparents don't get computers. Meanwhile, their grandparents can tend a garden, fix a car, knit, sew, and god knows what else. Naruto is unrivaled on the field of battle. He's even doing a damn good job of showing the Beacon students how to get stronger. That's his strength. THAT is who he is. In this story at least._**

 _ **Anyway, patrons can head on over to [**_ ** _p a treon . com (slash) Faulkner] and vote on what you want your reward to be. You guys pay me, so I feel bad about the slow release. Pick your recompense._**


	37. Two Steps Forward

**_Greetings and fucking salutations! Is it an error? It is a cancellation? No! It's a chapter._**

 _ **Fucking incredible.**_

 _ **This chapter almost killed my writing entirely. I've rewritten this twice, deleted at least 25 pages of writing, and ended up with a final copy that had nothing to do with the draft. I actually had 'this' chapter done and released to patrons. I didn't release it to the public because I thought I'd be writing a doubleshot of OFNT to get through the dance arc. Nope!**_

 _ **Does anyone read this anymore? I donno, but here you go. I'm going to go and try to get Incarnation of Selemene deleted from a certain game. Special thanks to Juggl3r and my benefactor without whom this chapter would never have seen the light of day.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 35.3.0**

 **Two Steps Forward**

Naruto knew himself to be a competent person. He also was fairly sure most people would agree with him, too. His team respected him, and so did everyone else — at least as far as he could tell.

So why was he being treated like he was nine?

"Are you _sure_ you have a suit?" Nora asked him with the most blatant of skepticism.

"Am I supposed to be changing my answer?" Naruto asked. "I think I remember saying that it'll be here once… maybe twice. No, wait, it was seventeen times already!"

Nora huffed unrepentantly as she adjusted the pink-topped dress she was wearing. Specifically, the section around her breasts that looked a bit tight as it were. "Renny, could you-"

Ren was behind her before she could finish, zipping the back of the dress up, much to its wearer's relief and much to the disdain of the dress now forced into a small struggle to contain the redhead's bossom. Nora didn't seem to notice, happily twirling in place to show herself off.

School that day had been uneventful. The student body had been charged with a giddy energy. The professors had mostly been understanding, with the exception of Glynda. Even then, she'd been more understanding — assigning detentions for tomorrow instead of scheduling them in conflict with the dance. A rare instance that confirmed a person laid within the twenty-foot walls of stoicism and sternness she kept up at all times.

"Shouldn't you be preparing to pick up Velvet?" Ren asked while fiddling around with the cufflinks of his own black and white suit. The only ground he'd ceded to personalization of his attire for the night was a deep purple bow tie.

"Nah. Velv said to meet her there. Didn't want us getting held up by her team. I guess some of them really want to talk to me?"

"Interrogate you, more like." Ren chuckled.

Naruto couldn't deny that was a possibility. All he'd heard of Coco Adel pointed to her being something of a hellcat. Feisty, quick to rise, and an uncompromising set of morals. Velvet had told him she'd hidden she was a faunus until Coco set her straight. Then she'd beaten everyone who looked at Velvet funny half to death. A nice person that Naruto didn't need or want on his plate right now. If he wanted a rambunctious woman there was a blonde in his life who'd likely be happy to oblige him.

Yang… that reminded Naruto of the one item on his plate that he'd been consistently pushing off to the side. His lack of desire to stomach something that was sure to be dreadful showed he was still a kid — in some ways, at least. He might have been at something of a stalemate with RWBY, yet he'd managed to enjoy his life as of late. Even if he could figure out what to say to the girls, the act of doing so would be a pain in the ass at best. Not to mention that he hadn't exactly figured things out yet.

Thus, with many similarities to a healthy and unenjoyable meal, he continued to push it to the side and focus on the things on his plate he enjoyed.

Caught up in thoughts of RWBY, Naruto was brought back to the present in a rather obnoxious way. "Are you _sure_ you have a suit?"

Naruto slapped his hand to the front of his face. Unfortunately, the pain was not severe enough to negate the annoyance of that question's eighteenth asking.

"I'm sure he has everything figured out." Pyrrha's voice defended him with a lilt of amusement and what felt like less subtle sarcasm. The bathroom door — behind which she was currently getting dressed — made it hard to say for certain.

"Kami… a little faith, please?"

"I trust you implicitly." Naruto could hear Pyrrha failing to stifle a giggle from beyond the door. Pyrrha had been in an odd mood yesterday for reasons he couldn't quite make out. He felt bad for that; their being at an arm's length was entirely his decision. The reasons weren't any his partner in this world had given him, rather they were more… personal in nature. Regardless, he was glad to see the impending dance had improved her outlook where he could not.

While he was thankful for the dance now, it had taken him a while to get on board with the idea. Frankly, most of the huntsmen and huntresses here would have been better off spending a full day training than slacking off at a dance. Of course, there were students like Sky too; a few days out of critical care and already trying to force himself back into his usual regimen. It made sense for a person like him to take a night off and drink the presumably spiked punch. Sadly, there was no way to reward the hard-working without doing the same to the slackers.

Such was life.

"Ignoring all of the sacrilegious backtalk I'm getting…" Nora grinned boldly while the corners of Ren's mouth turned up slightly. He could hear Pyrrha disguising her laughter more poorly than before in the bathroom. "You guys should go ahead of me. I have to wait for my suit and I'd prefer not to be asked for the ninetee-"

"Where's your suit?"

"... Twentieth time where it is."

"I'm finishing up," Pyrrha answered. "If I can get this zipper…"

"I'll help!" Nora immediately jumped towards the door, completely mindless of the way the white skirt of her medium-length dress parted as she did so. Naruto looked at Ren who was already sighing, fingers massaging the bridge of his nose.

"No, I've got it," Pyrrha replied, stopping Nora mid-run and deflating her like a balloon.

Then and there his battle-sense turned on. He could feel energy being molded and given purpose and so readied himself to do the same. It took him less than a second to isolate the direction of the disturbance and he turned himself to address it. Immediately after, Naruto snorted, then doubled over, putting his hands on his knees for support as he started to laugh.

"Hmm?" Ren asked, tilting his head in question

"Pyrrha, did you use your semblance to zip up?" Naruto asked between the racking bouts of laughter. Ren inhaled sharply, eyes dancing with his own brand of amusement.

"You were the one who told me that I should use it less sparingly. You're the one who said to improve my fine control of it."

"To get dressed?"

"Practice is practice." She replied in a playful voice.

Pyrrha was a lot more lively than she was at the beginning of the year. All of their team was… except for Nora, of course. If she had a next level of energy he was perfectly content not finding it.

Speaking of his team, they were much stronger for the two weeks of training he'd given them. He was happy at how fast they were progressing — Nora being especially adept at her new technique — yet annoyed at how much of their growth had come from his lessons. Beacon did an abysmal job of training students for combat. Taking classes on combat and then throwing kids in a ring to scrap it out was not teaching combat. There was too little focus on developing their semblances, skills with weapons, and combat tactics.

That was the reason he'd taken CRDL under his wing. He was convinced that Beacon would turn them into casualties of war if he didn't and couldn't bring himself to abandon them to that fate. But it wasn't the time for thoughts like that. Today was the day of childish relaxation, fun, and for some, romance.

He didn't need to disperse the thoughts from his head. When the bathroom door opened, Naruto didn't have room in his head for them. His mind, his eyes, everything was filled with one thing.

"Holy crap!" Nora shouted. "You're way too frickin beautiful!"

Pyrrha gave an embarrassed laugh, her gaze dropping to the floor to try and avoid eye contact. "You look amazing as well, Nora."

"I know I look good," Nora smirked, giving her best impression of Yang's hair-flip. The results were more funny than flirty with hair that didn't even reach her shoulders. "But come on! You look like a goddess."

"Stop it…"

"Pyrrha, I _know_ I'm straight… but if you were offering in that dress..."

"Nora!" Pyrrha's face took on the same color as her hair.

"What my partner is trying to say is that your efforts to dress up were not in vain," Ren said with a well-concealed smirk. "I dare to say it has affected your target audience better than you'd hoped."

Pyrrha spluttered, her eyes looking anywhere but at the three of them. The quiet member of the team adding to a joke had been unthinkable at the beginning of the year. He wasn't exactly wearing clown shoes and a round red nose, but he was much more willing to crack the odd joke every now and then.

It hadn't taken much for Naruto's team to start feeling like a team. Sometimes he still felt like he didn't belong — the adult among children — but it was something he needed to consciously reminded himself of now as opposed to the constant nagging feeling it had been.

That wasn't a problem at the moment. Right then, there wasn't much of anything going through Naruto's mind. Not thoughts of their team or of Ren's newfound sense of humor.

"Pyrrha, you look incredible."

The dress she wore was elegant and refined — no doubt expensive. Its color matched her hair, a fiery red that clung taut to her body. The zipper she'd semblanced up must have been low on the dress because the upper half of her back was bared before him as Nora grabbed her shoulders and forced her to do a twirl. What held the dress up was most likely its tight form, the fabric of the front that narrowed as it approached her neck and then tied around it, or magic.

With how she looked, magic was not out of the question.

The way she blushed at him — finding his eyes and then embarrassedly looking away once she did — made Naruto swallow.

 _Really?_ Kurama asked him mockingly, sneering at his host from their bed. _Isn't she a bit young for you?_

The familiarity of being teased by the fox snapped Naruto's mind back to something resembling focus, though honestly still a bit scattered. Pyrrha was… kami, she was something else.

It was timely for him when three evenly spaced raps sounded from their door. "Express delivery for Naruto Uzumaki."

"And I thought you were lying about the suit."

The accusation was enough that Naruto forcibly teared his eyes off of Pyrrha so he could give Nora the flattest of looks. "Really? Why would I lie about a suit?"

"I do not deal in why's with rogues and bandits who would stand against the Alliance of Firefox!"

Naruto looked at Ren, only to receive a shrug as response to his unspoken yet obvious question. He didn't have time to question what was going on as three more knocks were levied as pointless reminder that someone was still at the door.

"Give me a second," Naruto called out, making his way to and then opening the door.

A postman stood there, holding the hangar of the obvious suit-bag in hand. The black bag was a stark contrast to the artistically cursive white letters spelling out the designer's name around where the breast pocket would be. Naruto thought he recognized the name as belonging to one of the most upscale shops he'd seen in his numerous trips to Vale. Confident it was his suit, Naruto accepted. On the off chance it wasn't, then it was a very creative assassination attempt.

Having never received — nor having had any reason to receive — mail, Naruto wasn't sure how it would work. He was beginning to worry there was some sort of mailbox or pickup for each student where his suit would be sitting. He knew who the suit had come from too, so how did it get through security? Did they have a screening process?

"Sign here, sir," The postman asked with the bored tone of someone who was far too used to his job.

Naruto complied with the request, signing the digital device. Years of signing paperwork as his village's leader had devolved his signature into a loopy mess. When you had to sign something a few hundred times a day, you soon lost the ability to care about appearances.

His business done, the postman dismissed himself without a word and walked away, leaving Naruto holding the suit.

"Are you gonna open it?" Nora asked not two seconds after the door had closed.

"I'm going to change into it as soon as you three get going."

Nora gasped. "You're abandoning us? How could you?!"

That was an easy answer. There was more that he needed to do before the dance than get dressed. It wasn't an answer he wanted to give, particularly because of what it was he needed to do.

Ren grabbed his partner by the shoulder and pulled her past Naruto and towards the door. "We will see you at the dance." He proceeded to drag Nora through the halls under heavy protest from the girl herself.

Naruto mouthed a thank you to his lone male teammate who smiled in return. He was willing to bet Ren knew exactly what he would soon be doing, thus the willingness to shield him from the Nora shaped social grenade.

Through their time together, Naruto had learned that Pyrrha was both an exceptional fighter and something of a social diplomat. She could tell just as easily as Ren could that something was going on, even if she didn't know what.

"We'll see you there," Pyrrha smiled at him before following the other two out the door. She didn't ask any questions, pester him, or feel offended that he was keeping her in the dark. She trusted him.

He… didn't know if the feeling was mutual. That was something he didn't feel too great about at present.

Naruto had come to Beacon knowing he'd have to keep his capabilities a heavily guarded secret. Even with teaching a class, training the two teams, fighting Roman at the docks, and even decimating his partner in front of an audience — a partner who was expected to be far and away the top of their class — it was only the tip of the iceberg. They'd all accepted him with what he'd shown, but all he'd shown were abilities that put him at the top half a percent of the huntsmen on Remnant.

He wasn't in the upper percentile of Remnant. He was its ceiling. And there was a whole lot of space between him and whoever was next in line.

That was a lot to trust someone with.

Naruto understood his reservations about forming bonds with any of them better. Strangely enough, his talk with Roman had put things into perspective. He cared about them, even RWBY, kami help him. If there was a choice between revealing any of his abilities or watching one of them die, then he'd do it without a second thought, consequences be damned.

Except he knew what came after that. Fallout. The realization of governments and the politicians that ran them that every safety measure they'd considered adequate had been made obsolete. Then they'd try and discreetly learn the limits of his abilities so they could find out what benchmark their own defenses had to meet should he turn rogue.

Then they'd figure out they couldn't do it. No matter the effort or resources they invested into their protection it would be meaningless if he was their opponent. No man, beast, explosive ordnance, or any other means of defense would compare to him. When they realized that, then they'd come to the conclusion they existed at his mercy.

Following that happy thought, he'd have to deal with incessant lobbying for his favor. That wasn't limited to politicians — businesses would join too. They'd ask for his sponsorship for everything from clothing to bills they wanted to pass into law. If he supported nothing and chose to abstain, everyone would grow wary — fearful of what his 'goals' were.

It didn't get better if he supported some or most everything either. The first created schisms between those he did support and those he didn't. That divide had often resulted in physical conflict in the past. While he'd never gone so far as to support things indiscriminately, Naruto could only imagine that doing so would make him look irresponsible. Irresponsible was possibly the last adjective you wanted to be associated with someone who could turn your entire civilization into a smoking crater.

Back in his home, he'd even had checks to his power. Sasuke was his equal. Even without his best friend, Naruto doubted he could take on the entire ninja world alone, especially since the bijuu would likely side against him. In the Elemental Nations, he would be stopped if he did anything egregious.

Remnant didn't have that luxury.

That meant that he would always need to keep his strongest abilities secret. Obviously from people like Ozpin, but even from his own team. If someone who knew about him so much as whispered to the wrong person, his life in Remnant would start down the same road his old one had traveled. Naruto couldn't tell his team. He couldn't tell anyone. To tell was to put his life in the hands of whomever he confided in.

So he wouldn't… but it was hard to consider anyone a friend when you had to lie to them as a condition for survival.

That was what did it. Pyrrha and Nora trusted him, at least about anything that mattered. Ren had glimpsed his chakra. He doubted the calm boy could even comprehend what he'd seen no matter how many times he saw it. It was easy to remember the days where Ren looked moments away from breaking down and running to Ozpin.

He hadn't. Probably because that glimpse was enough for him to understand how pointless it would be. Now, however? It was different now. Ren had placed his faith in him. It wasn't the unwilling consent gained by overwhelming supremacy — not anymore. They joked, messed around, ate, trained, and everything else that a friendship would consist of. Ren treated him no differently than the two girls… or CRDL, now that Naruto thought about it.

How much of that was conditional? They thought of Naruto the super-student as a friend. What of Naruto the demigod? What of the Naruto that could destroy civilization if he — though he never would — wanted to? He didn't think the power had changed him, but obviously, enough people did. If they didn't, he wouldn't be in Remnant in the first place.

Naruto didn't know how long he'd been standing by the door, suit in hand, consumed by his thoughts. Pyrrha was long gone, having closed the door behind her. He racked his brain to try and remember when she'd done that only to come up blank. That level of focus was an undeniable indication of how heavily it was weighing on him.

Part of him wanted a life where those questions were answered for the best.

Naruto slapped his cheeks. Blood rushed to the impact sites seconds after the sharp sounded crack dissipated into the air. He didn't have time for those kinds of thoughts. Cinder was planning something bigger than he'd anticipated. Now was the time to start making his own moves.

The first step was equipping the tuxedo, and Naruto wasn't sure that the verb did enough to describe how arduous a task it was. The simplest part of the process was stripping down to his boxers and putting on the slacks. At least that made sense.

A pristine black shirt went on next — also easy. Following that was a needlessly fancy black dress shirt. It was made to have vertical pleats, which made no sense considering the majority of the shirt was covered by an orange vest. Naruto was convinced that tuxedos must be winter attire. There was no other way to explain why three layers were insufficient, the full ensemble demanding a fourth layer consisting of a heavy jacket over the previous three.

When finally he'd buttoned the dress shirt, tucked it in along with the undershirt, buttoned the vest, and buttoned the jacket, Naruto felt like he'd put on ten pounds and done enough buttoning to last him a calendar year. Now what awaited him was a night of careful movement as he strived to avoid dirtying this suit in a way that would demand it be dry cleaned. If he was lucky, all he'd have to do come the night's end was carefully undress and hang each and every piece back in the hanger provided with the suit bag, lest it wrinkle.

And yet none of these things remained as obnoxious as his final enemy; the bowtie. After fiddling with it for a good five minutes, failing, looking up a tutorial on his scroll, then failing some more, Naruto threw in the towel. The enemy that had bested him in Remnant was the most fearsome of orange bowties.

Resigning himself to the crookedness that couldn't be fixed, Naruto declared his appearance to be within the realm of 'good enough'. His team had gotten ready on the early side of things. If he was lucky, their neighbors didn't share that sentiment.

"Well," Naruto spoke aloud. "You coming?"

"To a dance? Of my own volition? With the bunny girl?" Kurama matched him with extra snark.

"Cinder might be there."

"She's entertaining, true, but nowhere near enough to put up with obnoxious children and music whose repetivity is only matched by its volume. Your pit stop on the way promises to be even less interesting — if that's possible. I don't know why you bother with them."

Naruto sighed. "They'll grow up. Hell, some of them already are growing up. Obnoxious is a bit much."

Kurama didn't respond, instead closing his eyes and curling up on their bed. It wasn't a conversation his partner was interested in having.

Naruto chuckled to himself as he opened and walked out the door. It was amusing how plainly his internal strife was portrayed in Kurama and Gyuki.

Part of him couldn't reconcile his age. He'd seen people die because of tactical failings, overestimation of capabilities, or even something as simple as the pure supremacy of an opponent. He'd danced with death enough to know all the precautions one would take for safety, even if he didn't need them. It was impossible to see his classmates jumping into idiotic fights they couldn't win as anything other than childish naïveté.

Well, less classmates, more RWBY.

He needed to talk to them. He needed to stop them before they walked into something he couldn't or, more realistically, wouldn't be there to solve for them. Blake's terrorist obsession was worrying enough as is. That he now knew he'd invited the one holding the terrorist's reigns into their little circle with his ramen night?

'Whoops' didn't quite cover it.

And while his life felt like it was getting better, it was by no stretch of the imagination getting easier. Blake, RWBY in general, Cinder, Roman, Ozpin, Glynda, and probably a few others he'd managed to forget were all giving him problems at present. The hope that any of them wouldn't make more in the future was a joke too, and not a funny one.

Things would get a lot simpler if he could figure out how to solve all of those while training two teams, spending time with his own team besides, doing homework, and talking to Velvet. Oh, and attending school functions such as dances.

Yeah, that was all he had to do. How the hell was managing the entire Maelstrom village less work than attending a goddamn glorified high school?

Naruto knew he was stalling now. He knew what came next, not that he could blame himself for wanting to avoid it. Though the decision was far closer than he felt comfortable admitting to himself, he'd decided _not_ to take Cinder out of the equation. For now, at least, she'd still be around.

If he acted, it would be as judge, jury, and executioner. None of those were steps Naruto was prepared to take. Not for Remnant. He'd keep his team safe, Cardinal too… and of course, RWBY. They were the reason he was dragging his feet.

"I'm off," Naruto announced to Kurama. The fox popped open a single red eye, huffed, and then closed it. He didn't expect much of a response from his partner in the first place. He'd said it not to convey his message, but rather to get himself moving.

As soon as he opened the door to leave, Naruto could hear Yang's boisterous laughter. It was even more impressive than usual considering the volume required to penetrate through Beacon's mostly soundproof walls.

"No! Get away from me!" Ruby's muffled shriek also managed to make it into the hall.

"You act like I'm coming at you with a weapon," Yang's deadpan was slightly marred by a snorting laugh she failed to suppress.

"You are!"

"Ruby, they're heels. You know what they are, right? Just put 'em on and you won't look like such a shrimp."

Ruby hissed. "Pure evil, medieval, foot torture devices! Stay away!"

"They aren't _that_ bad. Besides, they make your ass look nice."

"I don't care about my butt! You can't fight in heels! And they're uncomfortable!... And they suck!"

Naruto couldn't hear what happened next. The soundproof walls fulfilled their purpose when they weren't faced with the din created by Yang and Ruby.

"Yeah, okay Weiss! Nobody _normal_ can fight in heels!"

" _Excuse_ me?" He barely managed to make out Weiss' words.

The conversation devolved into something of a verbal brawl from there. Ruby trying to simultaneously explain herself to Weiss and avoid the dreaded heels Yang was trying to foist on her while also egging both her and Weiss on.

Naruto's palm was rested against their door, as it had been for their entire exchange. He needed to do this. The White Fang wasn't a simple terrorist group — as ridiculous as the implication of a terrorist group was — but was somehow serving a larger, more dangerous purpose than faunus rights. It was not the kind of thing a team like RWBY should be mucking around in. And that was something Naruto was going to tell them.

… But not now. His hand fell listlessly from the door, shame and guilt weighing down on him in equal parts, yet even that wasn't enough to make him lift it again. He turned away from the door and walked down the hall, leaving RWBY's dorm behind with a realization weighing down his steps.

He didn't want to do it. Not tonight. As much as he'd deny it to Kurama, part of him was looking forward to this dance. It might not be the most wholesome reason to be happy about a dance, but Naruto was excited to test his first clone learning in kami knew how long. That aspect was something he could admit easily… to himself, at least.

What was harder to admit, even to himself — no, _especially_ to himself — was that he didn't want to risk it. Life right now was more than simply comfortable, it was good. Good enough that he'd been able to make clones for the first time since he came to Remnant. Good enough that the thought of Nora literally dragging Ren along the dance floor was something he was looking forward to.

Maybe it was idiotic, but he liked having things to look forward to again. So for tonight, this one night, he'd leave the problem to be solved another day. Today he would have fun with his team and simply act like the student he was pretending to be.

If only simple desire was enough to rid him of his damn morals. He wasn't a student, wasn't a huntsman. He was a _hero_. He'd given everything up after the war to pursue strength and power. He'd wanted- dreamed of being the Leaf's Hokage for most of his life and he gave it up. It was simple; there were other people who could be the Hokage. Now others who could hold the line against an enemy on Kagura's level were she to appear?

That had been a two name list, with his so lucky as to be on it.

In something of a preoccupied blur, Naruto's feet had carried him to the garden of Beacon. It wasn't quite dark outside yet, the sun bidding its farewell as it hid itself away beneath the horizon.

Sitting and gazing out towards the vermillion sunset was calming. The buzzing uneasiness fluttering about his heart was somewhat placated by the comforting view. Tonight was supposed to be a night of fun and self, so why not start by indulging himself?

 _I'll go to the dance._ Naruto assured himself as if Nora was looming over his shoulder. _As soon as the sun sets._

It was funny how much relief shirking his plans provided him.

The silent tranquility of the garden he'd hoped for wasn't exactly being delivered as hoped for. The awkward shuffling of students not accustomed to their dress shoes was a constant noise in the background. Hushed, yet excited whispers accentuated the scraping of heels on the concrete and tile. None of which was surprising due to the fact that it was placed in a high traffic area, intended so the students passing from class to class would be able to see.

As such, it was funny that there existed something that could surprise him even less. That one particular group of students couldn't manage to keep their voices hushed as everyone else?

That was a given.

"I got ten bucks saying Russel is fucking doomed."

Russel snorted. "I'm doomed? You're the one going after a claimed girl. You're doomed."

"I for one would be willing to side with Russel on this matter…"

"Oh, hell yeah!"

"Really?"

"Were you willing to provide at least ten-to-one odds on my wager."

"Really?" Sky repeated Cardin's previous question. "You think those are his odds?"

"Actually, I'd put our dear teammate's chance of success closer to thirteen percent. Young women do so like the idea of rehabilitating a hopeless, idiotic reprobate and turning him into something resembling a functional man. You can't underestimate the few points he gains due to her knowing she would have total control of their hypothetical relationship either. If there are those who wish to dominate and those who long to be dominated, I believe it fair to say that she is the prior."

"Crap… when you put it like that, maybe he does have a shot," Sky admitted.

"Am I supposed to be happy or punching you both in the face? I can't tell."

"Wait," Sky ignored Russel completely. "If you think his odds are closer to thirteen percent, why did you ask for ten to one?"

Dove chortled. "Because I believe Cardin places his chances at some infinitesimally small number practically approaching zero, leading me to believe he will accept my offer regardless of the few percentage points I've deviated from what I believe to be the true odds."

"Damn straight. You're on."

"Okay, I'm _definitely_ supposed to punch you all in the face."

"Hmmm… while some men in your position might benefit from roughing up their appearance to evoke a woman's propensity to take care of a man, I believe your appearance to be disheveled enough that adding to it might push you over the edge of your precarious balance of hopeless to that of being worthless. Remember, you are a redemption story! Put your best foot forward and it's possible Weiss might mistake you as a man who can be fixed."

Cardin and Sky both laughed at Russel's expense. Even without turning to see it, Naruto could envision the coy, polite smile on Dove's face and Russel's reddened face.

"Fuck you! Fuck all of you!"

"Sorry, don't swing that way."

"Fuck off, Cardin! You know what I meant."

Leaving a trail of expletives behind them, the voices of Cardinal soon faded into the distance. The banter between the two was something Naruto had quickly come to appreciate as he'd started training them. It was… grounding, in a way.

That was the crux of the matter, wasn't it? Team CRDL, Team NNVR, both made this new life of his feel more like a life. Ren had accepted him, Nora had never not accepted him, and Pyrrha was always there for him if he needed it. Even showing himself to be the strongest of their year had ended in nothing but acceptance… or, in Pyrrha's case, a desire to beat him. Training them, training CRDL, and simply being with them both was a stabilizing force on his life.

RWBY was the opposite. Fighting terrorists, risking their lives, the childish gall of those who fought against evil but never expected to face death. Everything they did felt like an anchor to Naruto — to who he really was. An identity he no longer wanted to face.

The mantle of a hero.

Barring the hypocrisy of telling them not to run headfirst into danger as he had, Naruto didn't _want_ to be the one to tell them. He knew they were following their hearts — their sense of right. He knew firsthand how dangerous it was. That's why saying they should leave it to the professionals wasn't a hypocritical statement. He knew for a fact they were biting off more than they could chew.

"You might make the sun run away if you keep staring at it like that."

Naruto jumped a bit, less surprised at who was talking than he was at failing to notice her approach. The frequency with which that had been happening was something of an embarrassment.

"I thought I got rid of you, Pyr."

His partner bent over at the waist, bracing the bench with her forearms as she leaned over it. Pyrrha looked at him and flashed a tiny grin. "Nora may have mistaken the time the dance started. So she says."

Naruto rolled his eyes. Hearing the already excitable girl had managed to get herself excited enough about dancing with her crush to _accidentally_ mistake the time was hardly a surprise. "I'm guessing they didn't head back to the dorm?"

"Oh no, of course not," Pyrrha giggled. "Going back would 'ruin the mood' so they 'had no choice' but to take a walk around Beacon together."

"Naturally," Naruto chuckled. "And you didn't go with them because?"

"Ren did offer…"

"Of course he would," Naruto sighed. "And you said no?"

"I may have gotten a look from a certain someone to inform me that was the answer I should give."

"Of course you did."

Pyrrha giggled again. Naruto joined her, basking in the glow — the feeling of warmth their team gave off. His partner righted herself and stretched, Naruto's eyes following her as her arms left the bench and the raising of her shoulders lifted her dress the smallest bit. Her already lithe and athletically feminine frame accentuated even more by the crimson dress that clung tight to it.

"May I?" Pyrrha asked, gesturing to the bench.

Naruto nodded and patted the bench twice. When Pyrrha circled the bench and failed to take the spot he'd shown in lieu of one a few inches closer to him, Naruto had to forcibly push certain thoughts from his mind, turning his eyes back towards the sunset. He wouldn't have even noticed her like that under normal circumstances.

 _Damn dress._

Pyrrha sat down, using her hands to carefully tuck her crimson dress as she did so to prevent a snag. "Do you want to tell me what's going on?" She asked, her eyes looking towards the horizon as she did.

"What do you mean?"

Pyrrha rolled her eyes, not taking them off the sun as it waved its farewell to make way for the night. "As you would say, 'give me some credit'," She paused for a second. "I've been your partner for months. I know when something is on your mind, even if you never tell me."

Pyrrha's words didn't have any judgement. They didn't come from some hidden cache of resentment. It was the simple admission that she knew he'd willingly kept her at a comfortable distance. They were an acknowledgement of the reality he'd forced on her that she had accepted for him. The small, satisfied, slightly victorious smile on her face as she looked out towards the sky was her way of declaring victory. Even though Naruto had done his best to build distance, she'd closed that gap on her own to the point where she could understand him.

And he understood her well enough to know that she counted it as a victory over him. He'd tried to keep her out while she tried to worm her way in. And if he was being honest, with how comfortable he was sitting next to her he knew who'd won that contest.

His reservations hadn't evaporated, but neither were they as strong as they once were. A confession — if not a whole one — was easily plyed from his lips. "I'm just dragging my feet."

"You? Impossible."

"Ha ha, Pyr," Naruto deadpanned sarcastically. Pyrrha's laughter defused his attempt at being droll. "I'm a little stuck, that's all. Nothing you need to worry about."

Pyrrha hummed in agreement. "You're probably right. I'm sure if I left you alone you'd figure your problems out. I'll do it too if that's what you want," Pyrrha's eyes glanced towards him before returning to what was almost the night's sky. "That doesn't mean it's what I want."

"I know…"

The two of them sat quietly. Minutes passed as the light winter breeze washed over them while the orange and red hues slowly gave way to stars and darkness. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence that gripped the air, rather it was a tranquil stillness that the two of them lazed in. Two people both usually too busy to enjoy such things taking the time to relax and be still.

When the time came to talk the words weren't forced. They were easy and natural, falling from the tip of his tongue past his lips without any hesitation.

"I don't like what I need to do about RWBY."

Pyrrha didn't respond. The only sound was the breeze bowing down the grass and flowers around them.

"I know what I should do," Naruto continued, clarifying his previous statement. "That's not the problem. I know and I don't like it… don't like it to the point that I'm here instead of talking to them like I thought I would be."

A bird chirped from somewhere but he didn't know where.

"I've never been like this. I'd see a problem and do whatever I needed to do fix it. I haven't hesitated to do the right thing before. I don't get why it's so damn hard to do it now…"

Because he was having fun? Because it was a chore? He wasn't that childish, was he?

"And not understanding why I'm acting like this is making me more frustrated than anything else. I had my hand on their door ready to talk to them and then I walked away. Why'd I do that? I know they're not ready for what they're messing with. I know that. So why haven't I forced them?"

He could make them capitulate. Then again, he could remove any threat against any of them entirely, making the argument entirely moot. He could do anything. Nothing could stop him. Nothing except himself.

It was at that point that Pyrrha decided to speak. "Do you not want to talk to them?" She asked, turning her head to look at him straightly.

Naruto sighed, disappointed in himself. "It's that obvious?"

"You all but said it yourself right now. And I think most of us could tell before."

Naruto grunted. While he knew that he hadn't exactly been subtle, curiosity still got the better of him. "What gave me away?"

Pyrrha's eyes left his and turned back towards the sky. "Mmmm… I can't say for the others, but I know you're not one to let things stew. If you wanted to talk to RWBY you would have talked to them. Because you want to and because you think it's right; that's what makes you decide to do things, isn't it? It sounds like you think it's right to talk to them, so for you to be avoiding them..."

Pyrrha's voice trailed off while Naruto couldn't find his. He didn't answer because there was nothing to say. She's said it better than he could have himself. The only way he'd come up with to get RWBY to stop was something he desperately wanted to avoid.

And so with the quiet taking over once more, the two them lounged in the ambiance of the day's end. Night had wrested most of the sky from day and the twinkling of stars could be seen in the sky. Bright specks in the sky that managed to show their light from an unthinkable distance. Their brightness was something he'd not been able to see until the sky darkened around them.

But regardless of whether or not Naruto had noticed them, the stars had been there all the while.

* * *

Pyrrha's heart hammered in her chest as she fought the gravitational force on her right that tried to drag her sight from the skyline. Naruto's words, the atmosphere, the feeling of sitting right next to him as he confided in her; it was more than she'd dared to hope for.

He'd confided in them once before. One night where he'd ended up in tears not long after he started. Pyrrha didn't remember that night with any fondness. It had, after all, marked a turning point much for the worse for their team. So much so that this was the first time Pyrrha had seen her partner open up since. The two events weren't the same, though. Comparing the two was that of apples and tomatoes.

Both fruit? Yes. Similar taste? Not even close.

His emotions before had been like a badly shaken bottle of champagne; creating more and more pressure within him until they couldn't be corked down any longer. The way he spoke to her now was like watching a flawlessly opened bottle elegantly filling a crystal flute. Pyrrha fought to keep the smile that was fighting to escape to her lips caged. The ease in which Naruto poured his worries and woes into her was unprecedented and she knew how much it meant.

Looking towards the stars, Pyrrha smiled.

"Huuuuuuuuhhh," Naruto sighed. Pyrrha wasn't sure how long it'd been since one of them spoke. Was it too long or no time at all? She couldn't remember. "I need to stop being a baby and get over it. Doesn't matter if I want to stop them, I _need_ to."

"Because it's the right thing to do?"

"That and I'll feel even worse when they end up dead in a ditch later because I didn't want to deal with them now."

While she knew that was actually just a result of Naruto's sense of responsibility, Pyrrha decided to take the conversation elsewhere. "Knowing that you should do something doesn't mean it's any easier to do."

Naruto sighed, lacing his hands through his hair as he looked straight up into space. "Tell me about it."

When she couldn't find the words to say next, Pyrrha merely waited for her partner. It was a strange thing to have known someone for such a short time and still trust them so completely. It felt like ever since they met her life's path had gone from winding and indecipherable to simple and straight. Not knowing what came next didn't mean she didn't have faith.

Naruto didn't disappoint. "It sounded like you know the feeling."

Pyrrha hummed pleasantly, her trust rewarded. "Most people would. It's normal to not want to do something even if you know you should."

"Really?" Naruto asked. "I can't remember the last time I felt like this. I've always found what I thought was right and just did it… no matter what."

"That's easy when you want to do the right thing. It's easy when you don't have a strong feeling one way or the other too. It is very different than trying to do what you think is right when your soul rebels against it."

Her words were stronger and more emphatic than she intended, such was the emotion behind them. Her partner clearly noticed, tilting his head towards her so his eyes could scan over her. In the end, he didn't comment on it. Much like he wanted from them, Naruto didn't pry them for anything they didn't volunteer.

"How'd you deal with it?" He asked.

"I... I'm not sure my situation would be helpful to you."

Naruto nodded. "If you don't want to tell me that's fi-"

Pyrrha punched him lightly on the shoulder. "That's not it. It's that it isn't a problem I ever managed to solve."

"You're still dealing with it?" Naruto frowned, looking straight at her. His obvious concern gave her stomach butterflies.

"No no. It's solved, but I'm not the one who solved it… you are." She admitted, answering the question she was sure he was about to ask.

"Me?"

Pyrrha laughed gaily at how completely flummoxed Naruto looked. "Is it really that surprising?"

"Yes?" Naruto answered, baffled at how she could think anything else. It only made Pyrrha laugh harder. "What the hell did I do?"

She wiped away a tear of amusement from her eye, careful not to let it drip and ruin the small amount of makeup she'd used for the night. "You don't know? You _really_ don't know?"

Naruto growled at her grumpily, sending her into another fit of laughter. "I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you. It's just so ridiculous that you don't know."

Naruto returned her punch to her shoulder. She felt like such a child for relishing the moment his hand connected with the bare of her back as he did so. Naruto glared at her without a thimble of spite to the look. Pyrrha reigned in her amusement with great effort and shifted her entire body towards him.

"Well, you know I'm from Mistral, right?" Naruto nodded. "It's obvious when you look at a map that I moved almost the entire world away from my home to come to school here. I wanted to leave my life there behind and start somewhere new."

Naruto's face darkened. A seriousness and regret washed over Pyrrha like a crashing wave. It was thankfully brief, her leader literally shaking the emotion that had come over him from his body. She should have known better. They'd been together for months and yet Naruto never talked about where he was from in any specifics. It was obviously a sore spot for him.

And he would talk to her about it if he wanted to. Until then, she'd respect his privacy. "It was always expected that I'd be a huntress when I was a child. That was fine when it was what I wanted. When it wasn't… those expectations felt like anchors pulling me down into the ocean."

"I'd train six to eight hours a day in addition to both my classes and my fighting events. My whole life was consumed by the expectations held of Mistral's prodigal huntress-to-be. My parents were so proud of me, so proud of what I'd accomplished, and that made me feel like I needed to rise to those expectations."

Naruto looked at her, pure empathy twinkling in his blue eyes. "I don't think anyone could say you let them down."

Pyrrha sighed. "I didn't let them down, I let _me_ down. Between not being able to make friends and capitulating to everyone else's desires, I finally couldn't take it anymore. I'd reached the end of my rope and the only thing I could think about was escape at any cost. I found a reason to run as far away as I could and hoped against hope my life wouldn't find a way to catch me."

"I was about to give up," Pyrrha confessed. It wasn't hard for her to do. Not to him. "The first person who had a conversation with me here was Weiss. It was a conversation I've had so many times I could have navigated through it in my sleep. She talked about how we were both elites, how suited we were for each other, and then extended an offer of partnership. At that time I was terrified; scared that I hadn't run far enough to escape Pyrrha Nikos, Mistral's champion. I was scared my dream of being Pyrrha Nikos, student of Beacon would only ever be a dream."

"And then you bumbled in," Naruto huffed at her choice of verb. That feigned indignation was a favorite of his that always made her laugh. This time was no exception. "Hehe. It's _exactly_ what you did. You had no idea who I was, you didn't care either. You had no expectations of me beyond a hope that I could help you find your locker. I remember thinking that maybe if I got you as a partner… maybe things would be okay."

Pyrrha paused to gather herself — gather her thoughts. Doing so brought a smile to her face. She remembered worrying what she would do if she ever got a chance to talk about things with him like this. What if she panicked? What if she froze? It surprised her how unnecessary such worries were. She was excited, oh yes, but being next to her partner like this left her without a worry in the world.

"And I was right. Things have been okay. I'd even say they'd been great if it wasn't for a certain someone hiding themself away for the better part of a month."

Naruto chuckled, his eyes leaving hers as she looked straight through him. "Sorry about that. Being at Beacon… well, it was easier in my head than in practice. I spent a long time alone before coming here and-... forget about it. Just know that it didn't have anything to do with you three."

Pyrrha nodded, humming contentedly as her legs moved to and fro, her joy practically bubbling out of her. "We knew. Or, well, we figured it out," Naruto turned back to her and arched an eyebrow. "Even when you tried to keep us at a distance you were always worried about us, about our safety. Everyone decided that the best thing to do was to give you the space you wanted and hope you came around."

And he did. He was. This conversation was proof of it, right? Pyrrha fought to push her expectations down as they continued to rise as if to spite her effort.

"That's who I am. The hero who saves those in need," Naruto's wistful melancholy flowed from his mouth and was carried onto the breeze. "I would have tried to save anyone."

Pyrrha didn't need help pushing her expectations down after that. Her stomach dropped like a stone, worry and fear inundating every thought. "O-oh… It was just-"

"But," Naruto interrupted her, a wry smile on his face. It was mocking- no… admonishing in a way, yet Pyrrha didn't think it was directed at her. "I think I have gotten closer to our team. Cardinal too, damn them."

Her heart felt like it was on a roller coaster and Pyrrha had no idea when the ride was going to stop! Her cheeks were flushed as the blood of embarrassment rushed to her face. She was so giddy she felt lightheaded, which was the only possible reason she could come up with as to why a veteraned champion such as herself would manage to slip, sitting down, on a perfectly flat bench.

And when she tipped over, her head nestled itself perfectly into the crook of his shoulder and neck. Her hair was close enough to tickle his nose if a single one was out of place, which there wasn't. The warmth of his body through his suit radiated onto the bare skin of her shoulder. When he turned to look at her in surprise, his warm breath blew atop her head.

Then, against all odds, proving that there were most assuredly gods — all of whom were watching over her now — Naruto rested his head atop hers.

Pyrrha's brain fizzled. Too much blood had rushed to her head and none of it was doing what it was supposed to. Instead of focusing on something that might be useful —say, thinking of actual words to explain what just happened — at least ninety percent of her brain was happily focused on how perfect their heights were for each other. Her neck wasn't strained at all as her head rested against him. She could stay like this for hours and hou-

"Pyrrha?" Naruto prompted her, her name sounding like thunder through her addled brain.

"Bwuh?"

"You were saying?..."

Yes, she was saying, wasn't she? What exactly had she been saying again? She almost couldn't remember.

"Mmmmm…" She sort-of replied, filling the space as she prayed for her brain to work again. Thanks to the merciful gods above, it did. So much so that Pyrrha realized something she hadn't. "I was going to say that thanks to our team, I've left that life behind me, but that's not true."

She could feel Naruto tense against her body — feel his concern physically. "It still bothers you?"

"Not at all," Pyrrha denied it with complete confidence. "It's just… what's actually changed?"

"Now I'm lost."

Pyrrha giggled. "What I mean is that my life is still practically the same, isn't it? I go to class, train, and then spend most of the rest of my time catching up on homework or training some more. When I look at it that way, it doesn't seem like the things that make up my life are that different, yet I know how much I _feel_ different."

Naruto's face scrunched up. "I think I understand what you're saying and it still doesn't help me."

"I'm not sure it will," Pyrrha agreed, sidling a little closer to him as a gesture of comfort, her legs only a fraction away from his own. "I found reasons to be happy."

"Scratch that. I don't understand _and_ it's not helpful."

Pyrrha shoved him as reprisal, not that it did much. Her partner easily righted himself. "I _guess_ I shouldn't be upset with you…"

"You say that so reluctantly."

"Since I didn't understand until a minute ago myself," Pyrrha continued, sticking her tongue out at him once she'd finished her sentence. "When I left Mistral, all I wanted was to be a normal girl and leave my accolades as far behind as possible. Now I'm pushing myself even harder when I train than I did before I left. It's easier for me to do because I want it now like I've never wanted it before. All these new experiences helped me find a new reason to want to get better."

 _Because I want to catch up to you._

Naruto didn't have a response. Not at first. Her partner sat there, comfortable with her head nuzzled into him. Comfortable with her body warming him against the crisp evening cold. He was comfortable with her being with him while he worked through his thoughts.

And that made her happy.

"You think I could find a reason again?" Naruto asked her. He'd closed his eyes like he was afraid to see the answer to his question. "I might be a hero… with powers like mine, that's my obligation, isn't it? But I don't know if I could ever want to fulfill that destiny again. All you do is give and give as much as you can, yet the world still manages to take more than you can handle."

Pyrrha wished that his admission surprised her. She wanted nothing more than for her friend to know nothing of the pressures placed upon the people's champion. That's what he'd given her; the relief from that pressure. She might have been Mistral's star, but Naruto had quickly become Beacon's sun. The light with which his power shined had cast shadows large enough for her to hide in. The headmaster, the teachers, her fellow students all treated her like a normal person. One of them.

Because compared to Naruto Uzumaki, she was.

That was why she had to get stronger. That was why she'd found the will to train even more. She knew better than anyone how isolating it felt, how lonely it was at the top of the mountain. She wouldn't let her partner bear that alone. She would catch up, stand there with him, and never let him be alone.

"I think so," Pyrrha moved her arm that she rested on her leg around his shoulders, wrapping him into a hug. He didn't push her away. "Sometimes people can't find a reason to keep going. That doesn't mean there isn't one, just that we haven't found the right perspective to look at life so we can see it. I know if you keep looking you'll find your reason."

 _I found mine, after all._

Naruto lifted his hand and rested it on her head the same way he'd done to Ruby many times before. She welcomed it, ignoring the fact it might make a mess of her hair. She'd closed the gap between the two of them and that hand resting on her hair was Naruto's way of accepting that. His hand that was now running through her hair like some sort of caress was worth anything her hair might have to endure. There was nothing more important-

"Oi, Fuckface! You got your paws on the wrong girl!"

The woman's voice had Naruto jolt like they were being ambushed. He immediately separated from her, turned to face the newcomer, and grasped the bench ready to take cover behind it. Just like that, the calm and comfortable ambiance they'd built was shattered. Coco Adel had made sure of that.

Pyrrha wasn't sure she liked Coco Adel anymore.

She stood in a chique black dress that was perhaps a little too short for her. Pyrrha was willing to bet that was intentional on Coco's part. A necklace of black pearls were her accessory of choice for the evening in addition to her standard black shades and beret.

The more concerning dress was surprisingly the more modest one. Velvet stood next to her, shoulders hunched in her signature nervousness. At least she had the candor to realize the two of them had completely interrupted something! The chocolate brown cocktail dress clung to Velvet in all the ways Pyrrha didn't want it to. Not when the wearer of said dress would be spending the night dancing with her partner!

"We were just waiting for the dance," Naruto explained as if their actions needed explaining. Pyrrha didn't think they did. She and her partner were more than welcome to wait for the dance together at whatever proximity they liked thankyouverymuch!. "Our teammate got the time wrong and we left early."

"You left early and you're still late? How the hell'd you swing that? You know what? Forget it," Coco dismissed her own annoyance along with any possible excuses Naruto could offer. "Get over here and take my girl to the dance like you promised."

"Coco, you're not my dad. Stop acting like it," Velvet deadpanned, offering a look of apology to Naruto quickly after. "I'm so sorry about all of this. I was waiting for you by the entrance when Coco saw me and-"

"Oi, don't apologize for him being late. Grow a spine, woman."

Right as it looked like the two of them were about to have a row, Naruto's hand left the bench and he started walking towards them. "She's right. It's my fault for losing track of time. Sorry for making you wait."

Coco nodded acceptingly. "That's better. Now come over here and escort my fine young lady before I go back to my dorm and get my handbag."

"Is… is that supposed to be threatening?"

"It's also a gun."

"Ah," Understanding dawned on Naruto. He took three steps before turning back to Pyrrha, looking at her with an apologetic shrug. "Sorry about this. Meet you at the dance?"

"Of course," Pyrrha replied, having to utilize all of her years of training to pull off a cordial smile. Naruto continued to frown, waving a farewell before he turned back to Coco and Velvet. Pyrrha saw his very own smile go up as he did so.

It made the brusque evening feel even colder.

The three of them walked towards the dance, Coco literally shoving the two of them together until Velvet's arms were wrapped around Naruto's right in the fashion of a proper high-society male escorting his lady.

And Pyrrha simply sat there. Alone in the cold air of the now dark night… but that didn't describe how she felt.

Progress had been made. Nothing Coco or Velvet would do tonight could take that away from her. She wasn't miserable about what she didn't have. Pyrrha was happy with what she'd managed to get. The night's chill couldn't reach her, she was running hot.

As she watched Naruto's silhouette disappear around the corner there was only one thought on Pyrrha's mind. A single world that encapsulated everything she felt and thought so succinctly.

 _Mine._

* * *

 ** _For those who are curious, this chapter is about this chapter. I suppose it would be more accurate to say there are strong ties to the writing of this chapter. I didn't want to write OFNT anymore, couldn't find a way to make it enjoyable, and loathed every word I wrote in service to RWBY. Because of that, I've followed the advice of a very wise man and temporarily put them on a bus. That shit is future-kamorge0's problem. By doing that, I was able to find the joy that OFNT captured originally and write a chapter that I'm quite satisfied with._**

 _ **Let that be a lesson. If you can't find joy in what you're doing, change your perspective or your method.**_

 _ **Also, although morals come at the end of most stories, this one is far too important for that. Never ever do what Pyrrha is doing in your real life. If the structure of your being is ever based around a singular person you will have a bad time. I don't care if it's a wife, family member, best friend, whatever. Be prepared to figure things out on your own when the time comes. If one person represents the entire framework of your life it's both prone to corruption and stands as the only pillar that needs to be knocked down to fell you.**_

 _ **So yeah, be careful.**_

 _ **Next chapter eventually. Hit that pa+reon if you want it faster. If you don't, good for you!**_


	38. What One Wants

_**Greetings and salutations! Bit of a wait for this, sorry about that. First it was covering for a vacation that a coworker was going on, then it was trying not to die from fever, and in between, I had to make sure the Empire fell to the might of the Von Carstein.**_

 _ **Ya know, real critical stuff.**_

 _ **I have chills from the anticipation of being through the dreaded dance arc. For any aspiring writers in the RWBYverse, please take my advice and plan this out better than I did. I only recently took the cadaver of OFNT and started trying to find a way to bring it to life. The amount of groundwork I've had to lay in the past few chapters has been exhausting. I had considered abandoning this fic at one time, but I came to the conclusion that it would be ungrateful to the story and the fans. This work is what let me hone my writing skills from nimrod to slightly competent. Struggling forward to find a way to make this story work is my obligation.**_

 _ **One review in particular is getting addressed here. I don't normally respond to trolls... it's just that I can't tell if I'm being trolled or if the reviewer is actually serious. The long and short of it is that someone left a review akin to "You're doing a disservice to your story and your fans by making Naruto fall in love with so many women.".**_

 _ **... Wat? Are we... reading the same story? He hasn't... I don't... wat? For those of you who think Naruto is about to start a harem and are livid about it, I'm happy to release this chapter to you where all will become clear. This chapter itself doesn't end this explanation as it carries into the next, but it is a starting place.**_

 _ **I believe I'll be finishing this arc up before writing a chapter in any of my other stories, though I can't be sure. See ya guys at the finish line.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 36**

 **What One Wants...**

Sometimes Velvet felt like there weren't enough words to describe things. It was sort of a ridiculous thing to think when you considered how many darn words there were to choose from, yet she still wished to add a few more. In particular, Velvet found that trying to describe her current mood with a single word to be something of an impossibility.

Nervous? She definitely was nervous. Hard not to be when you had zero romantic experience and were on a very public first date. Still, that word didn't encompass the bubbly feeling that was taking over her gut. It felt like butterflies having butterflies when she looked up into his eyes.

So then she was happy? Yes, Velvet was happy, but if she were to tell someone that she was happy then they wouldn't understand the heat she felt in her cheeks as her heart tried to pound its way out of her chest.

Maybe she was embarrassed? Velvet had to think she probably was. A huntress needed to have an awareness of her surroundings. It was sort of a job requirement in their line of work if you wanted to _keep_ doing the job. Since turning that awareness off was easier said than done, Velvet could tell how many eyes were looking their way. It was a number far higher than she would ever be comfortable with.

And yet she _was_ comfortable. She felt warm, secure, and safe. It didn't matter how many people were looking at her. Worries about being the center of attention — worries such as wondering if she was talking too much, too little, or about the entirely wrong thing — like she'd normally have felt small and ignorable as she was twirled gently around the dance floor.

But she couldn't deny the bad. Velvet was jealous and a little bit angry too, which she felt she had right to be. Finding her crush _and_ date for the night had been late because he was stargazing with his partner — his _female_ partner — hadn't been the way she wanted to start the night. Velvet had also hoped the short earth-toned party dress Coco had convinced her to wear would have a little more impact on him. Naruto's reaction had been limited to saying she looked nice and wrapping that conversation up as quickly as possible.

Uggh… boys. Did they not understand how long makeup, hair, picking out clothes, and everything else took before a dance? Velvet had been involved in a siege against her own body for the better part of the day. Coco had insisted on a mani-pedi since she'd be showing off her feet in her strapped heels, then her partner spent at least an hour that honestly felt more like four helping her apply makeup, carefully putting on her dress as to not disturb her makeup, then having Coco touch it up once more since she smudged her blush slightly like a clutz-idiot.

Nice? Really?! How many hours of effort had she put in to get a simple _nice_?!

And that's why Velvet wanted at least one more word. Some way to describe how she felt that didn't exist. Because right now, as the current slow song they were dancing to began winding towards its end, Velvet felt all those things and more. She felt so much that it was hard to believe her body could contain all these feelings at once. That's why she wanted that word.

There needed to be a word to describe feeling everything at once.

But there wasn't. Not to mention that Velvet didn't think frontloading her date with all that would have been smart, either. Instead, she followed Coco's advice and stuck to a safe topic. Picking her words carefully as the song ended and they separated, moving off to the perimeter of the dancefloor. "I ummm… didn't know you could dance so well."

Naruto's' eyes twinkled when he responded. "It was definitely an acquired skill, that's for sure. It… took a lot of me." He laughed mirthfully, enjoying what was clearly a private joke.

That was Naruto to a T. Velvet had originally been certain he was an extrovert. After all, he went out of his way to help her with CRDL, then actually helped CRDL themselves. He even tried to help RWBY… which had been one of his less successful endeavors. The way he tried to help everyone he could was what had caught her eye in the first place. If someone needed help, Naruto was there helping.

The two of them had grown closer since that day he'd swooped in to needlessly rescue her from CRDL. Needless as it was, she found it sweet and it was what turned her on to him in the first place. The way he'd went and helped her made Velvet want to return what was more than a simple gesture.

And there was one obvious way to do it. She could tell his lack of success with RWBY was doing more than simply bothering him. He'd been pulling inward, becoming less stable, and keeping to himself. That was a big reason she'd decided to ask him to the dance in the first place. Naruto was at his best with people. If he was trying to pull into his shell, Velvet would have to pull him back out!

… Coco would have been way better at this.

"Aside from the dancing," Naruto shouted into her ear. That being the barest minimum necessary for Velvet to hear him over the popular pop song now playing through the speakers and the din of the students. "I'm not sure what we're supposed to do."

"We could get something to drink?" Velvet suggested.

"From the punch bowl of an event Yang helped set up? You're brave."

That was a fair point. "Then maybe… there's always… ummm…"

"Exactly." Naruto grinned, basking in his victory.

"Are you excited for your first mission? That's coming up soon for the first years, isn't it?" Velvet decided on conversation. Drinking, dancing, or talking was basically the full list of doable activities after all. She'd rather wait for a slower song before going out for another dance anyways.

"I shouldn't be worried but I am," Naruto shrugged. "I have a good team and they've all only gotten stronger since getting here. There's not really much they could throw at me I wouldn't be prepared for either."

"So it's just normal jitters?"

"I'm not worried about any mission they _should_ be giving us. I'm worried about what they _will_ assign. I wouldn't be off base saying Ozpin stalked me in the beginning of the year. This is his golden opportunity to push my limits."

She'd heard about this both from Naruto himself and the rumors that circulated through Beacon. Naruto had visited the headmaster far more than any other first year and been requested more than that besides. It made sense, though. Velvet saw him fight that one transfer girl that one time. He would easily be one of the best second years, not to mention freshman.

"You think he'd make your team do something dangerous to test you?"

"Either that or something he wants done. I'm sure it'll be one or the other. This is his golden opportunity. Throw my team into some dangerous situation so whatever huntsman he has watching us can see how I get us out of it. We'd be a captive audience at that point so he'd have a guarantee I'd do something."

Naruto scratched his head. Velvet had a hard time telling if he was more nervous or annoyed. Either way, not a safe topic to be discussing.

So she grabbed his hand as the song changed to an unmerciful uptempo swing. Something she could tell would be far more complicated than rotating slowly in a circle. "Do you want to dance again?" She asked, tugging him a bit towards the dance floor as she did.

Naruto's anxiousness broke as he laughed over her complete lack of subtlety. He let his body go slack to make it easier for her to drag him out and into the dance. Channeling her inner Coco, Velvet did just that and yanked them both into the foray. Naruto was going to have fun as her date if she had to force it down his throat!

… Hopefully?

* * *

Velvet very obviously wasn't in her element as Naruto led her through a simple peppy dance he'd picked up after his clones dispelled. Eighty percent of this style was apparently the man twirling the woman around anyways, meaning she didn't have to know much of anything to dance it.

He sent Velvet out like a top, her chocolate dress fluttering up as she spun outward to the trumpet's jazzy tune. She only stopped when both their arms were extended to their fullest. The tug he gave her sent her spinning back into his arms where he embraced her from behind. He bopped his hips for two beats on his left before switching to the right while Velvet did the reverse. Two measures of that was their break before he took them flying into the next course of the dance.

It was intoxicating. Not the dance itself, oh no. What the dance _meant._ For the first time he'd managed to clone learn in Remnant. He'd had to force it, but he was glad he did. He'd likely not have tried if it wasn't for the prospect of making a fool of himself at this dance. As remarkably childish as that was for a motivator, it was what had inspired him to try again. He owed Velvet for that.

He saw what she was doing by inviting him. Velvet could tell there was no way in hell he was going to this dance willingly. She'd asked him as a friend to try and force him to cut loose for once, same as Pyrrha had sort of advised him. Maybe she had a guy she was hoping would ask her, maybe she didn't. It still meant something that she'd give up a night just to try and make sure he had some fun. Naruto owed her one for that. He couldn't admit it to himself at the time, but he had been winding himself up pretty tight over the constant headache that was Blake Belladonna.

So he'd make her look good on the dance floor if it killed him. Velv should have been beating them off with a bat by now. Honestly, Naruto could only assume that guys were getting the wrong impression about the two of them. That was the only way he could explain how no one else had tried to steal her away within the first ten minutes of them being here. Pyrrha's dress made her look ready for the spotlight, but Velvet's made her look ready for a party. A fun juxtaposition for anyone who knew her.

To some the short brown dress might have had the color of a succulent chocolate asking you to take a bite. That wasn't Naruto's perspective. The dress felt earthy to him. Grounded. Beautiful all the same. What he liked more than the dress was what it did to his friend. Velvet looked more happy and confident than she normally did. That skimpy dress that Naruto had no doubt was Coco's influence was making her feel as gorgeous as she looked. The high heels she was wearing accentuated her long legs as she strutted away from him.

Naruto didn't know why she was walking away from him. Not at first. Not until she pirouetted on her left foot and turned to face him. A memory flashed and Naruto knew what she was trying to do. Catching her entire body with his right arm, Naruto let the momentum carry her past him and take his arm with it. Guiding her, Naruto flipped her behind his back and passed her over to his other arm. Lifting her up and swiftly depositing her in front of him, Naruto and Velvet looked at each other with tinted cheeks and a giddy thrill.

 _That_ wasn't something his clones had seen fit to practice much. What little knowledge he did have was supplemented heavily by raw physicality. But their dance wasn't over yet. Velvet didn't give him any time to rest before they worked their way into the climax of the song.

Naruto gripped her hand in his own and twirled her backwards, slowly walking himself forward as he did so. Three, four, five, six spins. The trumpet went wild in the song as the rest of the brass stayed silent for one final solo. At the eleventh spin, the trumpet held its final note and Naruto slowed down, stretching the final twirl across the three measure hold the trumpeter blew without having given himself any room for breath before. Their eyes locked as she slowly turned in place.

When it ended, there was a measure of silence where they simply maintained that eye contact, their arms stretched as far as they would go and only being held together by the tips of their fingers. He didn't have a grip on her anymore, only a touch. Her cheeks were flushed with color and her ragged panted breath held her glistening pink lips slightly open.

And when the full band started back up for one last hurrah led by the trumpet she pushed her hand forward just enough for Naruto to pull her back. He didn't hesitate to grab her, reeling her back in like the fish he wouldn't let off the line as one last spin made her dress flare as his left arm coiled around her body. Her hand found his other one the same time their eyes did. Chocolate orbs melting into sparkling sapphires.

And then they drank in each other's laughter as they basked in the afterglow.

Practically falling over one another as they moved off the floor, their bodies tangled together, the two of them couldn't stop their laughter abounding. The pure joy, the mirth, the ridiculousness of what had just happened. All of it made Naruto gasp for breath.

"What- haha... oh, kami. What the hell was that about?"

"Whaddoyou mean? Velvet's words slurred as another bout of giggles overtook her. "It was a dance. I was dancing."

"Yeah, okay. Gonna pretend you didn't go from zero to a hundred in half a second?"

Velvet's eyes averted his own in such a blatant attempt at looking innocent that it was actually anything but. The neutral expression she was forcing repeatedly bent into a grin she was trying to quash. Naruto felt like she was doing a marvelous job at failing.

"You looked distracted," Velvet confessed as her poorly masked smile gave way to a mischevious grin. Naruto could hardly believe that she of all people knew how to make one of those. "I thought I'd steal you back from your thoughts."

"By jumping at me?! You looked like you didn't even know how to dance that song in the beginning."

"Hey, I saw it on a TV show once."

Naruto stared at her flabbergasted. Three seconds of pure shock before he devolved into a giggling mess. It certainly wasn't the most masculine thing he'd done. Velvet was right, of course. He was distracted, even if it was Velvet herself that was the distraction. And what he'd been thinking about her had been cemented by this whole affair.

Velvet was his friend. There were no ifs ands or buts about it. It didn't matter that he had close to fifty years on her. He'd felt like it mattered before — felt like it _should_ matter. But laughing in each other's embrace as she leaned on him to stay upright felt so natural that he couldn't deny it anymore. She was his friend and he was hers.

"Hot damn," Coco swore as she sauntered over to the two of them. "That was hot. Should I make sure Fox and Yats find someplace else to sleep tonight?"

Velvet was already red in the cheeks after their dance, but her partner's meaningless teasing made it more of a blush. "Velv was something else," Naruto agreed. Velvet's face turned tomato red. "I'd be surprised if she didn't earn herself a few fans."

"Damn right. Better hold on tight or you might lose her."

Naruto rolled his eyes. He didn't know what he expected. A boy and a girl going to a dance platonically? It didn't matter that it was true, they were practically begging the antagonistic leader to tease them.

"Not to get in the way of your steamy romance or anything, but that bunny owes me a dance."

Velvet groaned. "Coco! Read the room!"

"I did. Room said that if I waited any longer you two would smuggle out of here for a more private type of dance before I got my turn."

The way Velvet grabbed her ears and hid behind them as her blush got even redder was adorable.

"Alright, that's enough poking fun for now," Naruto stepped away from his date. "I can keep myself busy for a few songs. You two have fun."

Velvet had some visible reluctance towards the idea. Before Naruto could ask what was the matter, Coco snatched her arm and dragged her partner away like a prison warden. "Thanks, loverboy. I'll return her to you wet and ready."

"Coco!"

"With sweat from our vigorous dancing," She added as a lazy afterthought.

Naruto watched Velvet tear into her leader with a smile and a shake of his head. Coco had zero patience and her partner was its paragon. Even when Cardin and his team had been bullying her, Velvet let it slide off her back without worry. Not a bad way of approaching things considering there were few problems that couldn't be solved with patience and persistence.

Most, but not all. If Naruto was being honest, his motivations for letting Coco take his date away weren't entirely altruistic. Something had caught his eye. Something concerning. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he wasn't. Either way, Naruto knew he needed to find out.

* * *

There were few things that brought people together to the degree sports did. The adrenaline, masculinity, and nationalistic tribalism that was supporting one's team spoke to people in a way few hobbies could. Indeed, few things could get the blood pumping like a sport. Baseball, football, blood sport. All interesting in their own rights. When it came to sports there was something for everyone.

For Dove and his team, the sport of the night was romance.

And Team Cardinal was off to a shoddy start with an obvious gutter ball. Now, batting zero for one might not seem like the biggest of issues in most cases, however when only two of your four members were going to bat…

That _did_ make a strikeout a bit more damning.

Dove watched as Russel hobbled back towards the three of them waiting near the punch bowl, his shoulders slumped and the aura of defeat around him practically a neon sign. It was what they all expected. Regrettable for his teammate if not remotely surprising.

"No joy?" Cardin asked. His shit-eating grin only served to drive the stake of rejection deeper into his partner's heart.

"It wasn't a rejection!" Russel clarified immediately, his cheeks slightly flushed. "She… has a date already. I coulda gotten her to say yes if she wasn't already spoken for, ya know?"

"Yeah, okay. Keep telling yourself that bud."

"Eat shit and die, bastard," Russel fumed. "At least now I have the rest of the night to myself. When you get shot down I'll have your grave dug."

Cardin and Russel bickering with each other was something Dove had learned to ignore within his first week at Beacon. The alternative had been murdering them for the sake of silence… which Dove had contemplated far more than he was proud to admit.

 _Really though… Weiss still has a date?_ Dove mused. Did this Neptune fellow have more of a spine than he'd anticipated? He had some very sincere doubts about that. So what was going on? _I suppose a little more meddling couldn't hurt._ Dove thought with a mental shrug.

Russel and Cardin's bickering had not reached its cessation by the time Dove decided to come out of his think tank. While he found it safe to assume they were arguing about Russel's failure, he couldn't be bothered to listen to the exact verbatim they were choosing. Dove instead chose to adopt what was a Team Cardinal special; ignoring all social queues to swing into a conversation with all the grace of a wrecking ball.

"Since you've not had any luck with the heiress, I hope you don't mind if I try my luck," Dove said, not waiting for confirmation before he started his approach.

He hadn't intended to take second at bat — or are up to the mound at all — but what the hey? This was a dance, after all. When in Atlas…

It was unsurprising that he soon found his way barred. "Huhhhh? _You_ wanna go for _Weiss_?!" Russel looked at him like he'd grown an extra limb.

As much niche charm as his teammate's slackjawed incredulity had, Dove decided he would rather remain focused on the task at hand. "Indeed. Now, if you'll excuse me…"

Allowing him to go after his crush was clearly the last thing Russel wanted to do. It was probable he'd say as much if given the time, but Dove had already sidestepped him and began his approach.

"Dude! She's got a date! What are you-" Whatever else Russel said was lost in the cacophony of the crowd.

Dove considered himself something of a pragmatist. The world contained many desirable things, that is true, yet it harbored even more people wishing to claim them. He _could_ spend his life despairing over ways for everyone to get their slice of pie. But honestly, why would he? It took much less time to make sure he had his pie as well as those he chose to share it with. If someone else wanted to spend their life fussing over inequity, Dove both wished them well and considered them childishly idealistic.

It was that desire to look after his interests that had him somewhat annoyed. _I thought I'd handled this already._

Weiss was standing next to her blonde teammate, both wrapping up the task of inviting the latecomers in, both in immaculate white dresses. Expected of the Schnee, though not of the blonde. An unfortunate number of his classmates were making fools of themselves by ogling them when they thought the two wouldn't notice.

Cardin had once said that the thrill of making your move on a girl was something impossible to explain. Dove felt nothing of the like as he cleared his throat to get Weiss' attention. 'Twas likely because said thrill was the result of fearing rejection.

Which he did not. "My apologies for bothering the two of you."

The unmasked wariness the two girls regarded him with was funny enough that he had to put some small effort into maintaining his neutral smile. It appeared that Russel had not taken his rejection as a gentleman should. He could use that.

"It's fine," Weiss replied. "Was there something we could help you with?"

"Indeed. You see, I'm on something of a mission regarding my teammate, Russel. And no, that mission is not to force you to dance with him," Dove added with a chuckle as both their expressions soured.

"Then I'm not sure what you need us for," Yang said defensively. Women had such a strange protective streak when it came to rebutting unwanted advances towards their friends. Dove had never understood it.

"Russel is most certainly a vagabond. However, he is _my_ vagabond. I've taken it upon myself to domesticate him, yet my attempts to date have been… largely unsuccessful."

"Ya think?" The uppity blonde fielded the response once more. "You should let your pal know he needs to work on his pickup lines. I don't think I know a girl who'd say yes to 'ya wanna have a good time?', least of all my teammates."

Dove's sigh right then was genuine. It amazed him how idiotic Russel could be at times. Was he so desperate to cling to his machismo that he'd pretend to be some cheesy bad boy from a Vacuan gangster movie? Tragic as that was, it didn't matter. He could still use that.

"And that is exactly what I've told him time and again," Dove lied guiltlessly. "And is also the reason why I'm here now. I told Russel that the only way to ask a lady to dance is with respect and poise. I came over here hoping you would assist me in instilling my teammate with a newfound appreciation for proper etiquette."

While Yang seemed a skosh behind in the conversation, Weiss was not. One face contorted with surprise while the other hardly reacted at all when he reached his hand forward with palm upturned and bowed his head. "May I have this dance?"

"Oi!"

"It's fine, Yang," Weiss placated her teammate. Dove appreciated that, though he doubted things would be going his way yet. "While I appreciate what you're trying to do for your teammate, I'm already spoken for this night."

"Are you now?" Dove asked with a forced smile. She shouldn't be. Not anymore. "And who is the lucky gentleman?"

"Neptune Vasilias," Weiss answered.

It was the custom of the upper class to give one's full name when they were your escort for the evening. Dove couldn't say he was pleased his mother's lessons had imbued his character with the ability to conjure up the atmosphere which made Weiss feel it necessary to respond as such, but it would serve.

"A good man, to be sure... It is possible I misrepresented my intentions. I don't wish you to misunderstand; I'm not asking for you to accompany me for the evening, rather join me for a single dance. That is, only if Sir Vasillias hasn't already left you danced out."

The blush in Weiss' cheeks informed Dove he'd struck a nerve. He would use that. "Neptune is running a bit behind. He knew I would be ushering for the event, so he most likely didn't wish to distract me until I was done."

Dove didn't need to see Yang's face to know that was a lie. Not that it mattered in any case. He'd not be so uncouth as to poke more holes in the heart of a maiden when it was already bleeding.

"A considerate gentleman. Perhaps his consideration would extend to allowing me the privilege of being your warmup dance?"

"You guys don't quit, do you? When a girl says no, she means no." Yang bristled.

"Truer words have never been spoken. Yet if I recall correctly, I've not yet been told no, have I?" Dove smiled. "While it is fact that a gentleman need respect a lady's wishes, that does not mean he should be a coward."

His mother had once told him that diplomacy was the art of breaking glass. Seldom could you smash the glass by your own hand and get away with it. No… political manipulation often called for a less direct approach. A suggestion here. An implication there. By quietly and discreetly making measured cracks, one could control how the glass would break with no one the wiser to how it happened.

The break caused by Neptune's tardiness was too deep for this particular glass to withstand the pressure. "I suppose Neptune would understand," Weiss relented. "More the better if it will help cull your teammate's roguishness. Most everyone has shown up by now, anyway."

 _Ahhh… the sweet sound of capitulation._

Dove didn't let his satisfaction show, wearing the perfect smile that had been hammered into him his entire childhood like armor. "I do appreciate your magnanimity. I promise to be out of your hair after this."

Weiss nodded, placing her dainty hand in his own. Dove lightly cupped it and escorted her out to the perimeter of the dance floor. At the turn of the song, the two of them made their to the center. The grasp on her right turned into the leading hand while both their lefts found the proper resting place; hers on his hip and his in the crook of her hourglass figure. Her left may have rested on his chest if they were close or intimate. Obviously, they were neither, so the waist it was.

Some people said that dance and sex were remarkably similar. Gods, did he hope not. Dove led Weiss as the man was expected to, Weiss allowing him as she was expected to. Both fulfilled the roles they'd been bred to with grace and poise. From the outside looking in, Weiss' elegant twirl as he sent her out and the way her dress fluttered as she pulled her back in must have seemed beautiful, yet both of their faces were completely dispassionate as they executed the practiced movements.

Of course it was. Weiss had likely been hammered into the proper form of a noble since she was old enough speak. From what Dove heard, she'd managed to get away with that being the worst of it. Perhaps it was cold of him to say, but really… how else could he say it? He hadn't been beaten into shape.

His mother had melted his essence and cast it in her mould.

Dove was more than ready to take his bow when the song came to its halfway. He recognized most songs of the variety due to having been expected to dance to them without err at a moment's notice. That he still recognized it was one of many reminders that he was still his mother's son.

After becoming a huntsman he'd done his best to seal off all parts of his life prior, leaving him precious little identity with which to make a person. He… wasn't sure who he was anymore. Due to being an unnecessary spare, his mother's highest hope had been that he marry up and bring in money for Bronzewing Copper in doing so. Dove hadn't even chosen to be a huntsman. His mother had simply grown tired of his inability to woo perspective ladies at their announcements or other formal venues. His service in the war against the grimm would hopefully bring honor to his house, though more than likely his mother's highest hope was a shameless death.

Useless thoughts such as those were why it took him three seconds to respond to Weiss' polite curtsy at the end of the song with a bow of his own. Not wanting to break etiquette any more than he already had, Dove offered his arm to escort her off the floor. Weiss took it.

"I thank you for the dance," Dove said rather plainly by his standards. His team would have certainly mocked him for how formal it sounded anyways. They had no idea how ridiculous some could get with their compliments at the end of something like this. "And if it's not too much trouble, please consider Russel for one as well if he asks properly and your date allows it."

Weiss removed her hands from his arm and faced him. She didn't eye him harshly. There was understanding in her light-blue eyes like she'd always known this was coming and forgave him for it. "I thought you wouldn't be asking me to dance with him? That is what you said, is it not?"

"I did, didn't I?" Dove chuckled, scratching his chin with his pointer finger. "I'll have to say the fault lies with my team on that. Tell me six months ago how quickly I'd forget things nowadays and there's nothing short of a traumatic accident I'd have accepted as an explanation. Nowadays I forget as a simple means to preserve my sanity."

Weiss laughed. "So you _are_ saying you forgot?"

"Hmmm… you see, a side effect of trying to pull rogues out of the muck is that your boots tend to get dirty in the process. Try as I might, I can't deny that the three of them may have splashed onto me."

"Something I understand completely. Beacon has been nothing like I expected… yet I don't think I'd have it any other way."

"I see you too are being infected. Likely best to succumb to the madness without a scuffle. At least you'll be happy thinking you're sane."

Weiss smiled. "Preaching what you practice?"

"Of course. Giving up on a chance with Weiss Schnee just so I can try and give the village idiot another go? My mother would have me burned at the stake."

Weiss scoffed and shook her head, building some space between them that hadn't been there previously. "A chance? You _must_ be mad."

"In whose case?" Dove asked with a coy smile.

Weiss snorted, Her ponytail flipping as she turned away. "Yours, obviously. If your friend is brave enough to try — _properly_ try — again, I won't hold it against him."

"You're most magnanimous," Dove thanked her as she started to walk away. He fired one last salvo, not wanting to let her get the last pertinent word for some reason. "Forgive me for assuming on my end. I thought I saw a spark."

With how raucous the crowd was, Weiss shouldn't have been able to hear him. Yet she stilled for a second. It was a very long second to Dove, not entirely sure of what he was expecting or hoping for her to do. She decided on shaking her head in a way that he felt contained some fondness before he let her disappear from his view.

Dove decided that he was satisfied with that. Weiss had neglected to mention her date at the end. Possibly because he had reminded her that she was a lady who should not be made to wait. A good thing too since Dove had firsthand knowledge suggesting that Sir Vasilias might not make his appearance today.

 _A suggestion here. An implication there._ Dove played the words back in his memory. Two sides warred; one in satisfaction and the other in disgust that he'd fallen back on his past. Half pleased and half disappointed. Knowing the crucible he'd been forced through was actually serving him now was the worst thing he could admit. He wanted nothing more than for all of her lessons to have been for nothing.

With no more reason to linger on the sidelines, Dove ventured to find his team and give Russel a few words of advice along with the good news. It didn't take long to find them. Cardin's laughter being something of a hybrid of a snigger and a snort made it easily discernible, even in a crowd. No doubt Cardin was teasing poor Russel.

"Russel," Dove pinched the bridge of his nose as he rejoined his team who'd taken residence against one of the walls away from the crowds. "Weiss Schnee is an heiress to a multi-trillion lien company. Please tell me you did not lead with 'you wanna have a good time?'."

Russel flushed. "What's wrong with that? It shows that I'm cool and in charge. Chicks dig that."

Dove could feel a headache forming. A typical part of his daily life since he'd come to Beacon. One could only be exposed to so much stupidity with such frequency before some sort of side effect reared its ugly head.

"No, 'chicks' do not 'dig that'. What they are attracted to is the eleven out of ten movie stars who are paid to say stupid things like that in blockbuster movies."

His lecture didn't stop there. If Russel wanted a ghost of a chance then he'd need every lesson impartable. His teammate's pathetic defenses for his behavior were pushing the headache slowly but surely into migraine territory. Truly, Russel was some special breed of moron.

And Dove was happy to be his teammate regardless.

* * *

Some people didn't know that there was much more to neutralizing a threat then punching it into the ground. While possessing the strength to claim your victory was important, it meant very little if you couldn't see a problem coming. Good intelligence had the potential to win wars before they even started. Even the strongest could lose because they were outflanked.

Which was why Naruto was piqued by what he saw Cinder doing. The voluptuous woman should have been pulling at least half the male eyes in the hall at any given point. The dress she wore was the dark red of spilt blood that had started to dry. A dark red shade of lipstick combined with her pitch black hair gave her the appearance of a thorned rose in the nightlight. The way she was dressed, the way her hips sashayed when she slowly glided across the floor, the mysterious air she gave off with a smile that so obviously concealed all its intentions. All of it combined to make a femme fatale that should have marginalized far more men than Naruto.

As it was, Cinder had socialized with multiple small groups of people without lingering on any particular one. The few men brave enough to make a go at her all found themselves interrupted by Mercury who would whisk her away only to start the process over again.

After the third time this happened there was no denying the pattern. It was intentional. Considering it was Cinder, it shouldn't — and didn't — surprise him that she'd be up to something. You didn't get to do this as long as he had without learning how to identify a fanatic; someone hellbent on their cause, whatever it might be. He'd known that about her from the moment Kurama noticed her as they passed in a hallway.

But he hadn't expected her to be so unscrupulous. The White Fang? Terrorists? What had happened to her? People didn't go around vassalizing extremist groups and career criminals like Roman to get back at someone for throwing a rock through their window. She had a vendetta against somebody — something. Naruto couldn't see the entire picture no matter what way he framed it.

 _Not enough information._ Naruto's eyes continued tracking Cinder as she left the group she'd been talking to for the last few minutes. Crowded though it was, he easily maneuvered his way through everyone without drawing any undue attention. _Now how do I get it?_

Cinder technically had an obligation to let him know if she intended to do anything, such was their deal for the safe return of her strange powers. He'd hoped that her desire for them would have been enough to keep her from doing anything dangerous. Now he was beginning to have his doubts.

Naruto had seen some of the worst people imaginable prove that there was good inside them. That belief — that _proof_ — made him not want to write Cinder off as a lost cause. Yet that wasn't the only motivation roiling around his conscience anymore. Because of Velvet… because of Pyrrha, Ren, Nora, CRDL… he'd finally begun to carve out a place he could settle into.

That meant that it was time for him to do what he did best. Follow his gut, press an advantage, and trust in his training. _Enough stalling. Time to see if my gut got it right._

Naruto didn't part the crowd as he made his approach. He _melted_ through it. Finding openings people left to make it through without turning a single head his way. It was an important skill to have when you were tailing someone in a population-dense area. Push through too many people and your mark might start wondering why you're in such a hurry.

He was ten feet out before Emerald made him. She'd stood somewhat apart from the group, presumably as their spotter. That perception was reinforced when Emerald returned to her group, whispering into Cinder's ear.

Benevolent man that he was, Naruto wished Emerald hadn't gone through the trouble of announcing him. He'd be doing a perfectly fine — and more importantly loud — job of that right now. "Cinder! I hardly even noticed you were here. Thought you might have skipped out."

Emerald and Mercury were both tense, prepared to attack at a moment's notice. Too tense. A few murmurs had already begun rippling through the crowd. Cinder held up a placating hand and stepped forward. "I nearly did. Social events like these are not my preferred vice."

"Really? Huh… couldn't tell by looking at you. That's a hell of a dress."

"Flatterer," Cinder simpered. "No, I simply came to support my teammate in his endeavors. Mercury is quite the flirt."

"Guilty~" The silver-haired boy grinned in his black and gold trimmed tuxedo, his eyes narrowed to slits as he did.

"I decided it wouldn't be right of me to deprive poor Mercury of his fun."

"Naturally," Naruto deadpanned… mostly. There was an unbridled excitement to his sarcasm that he couldn't contain. This show, these justifications, the air that was practically freezing between them all pointed to his hunch being on the money.

And that was exciting.

"It wouldn't be right to not have fun at the school dance," Naruto smiled. An idea had sparked in his mind and was quickly building into a flame. "Why don't you join me for a dance?"

Cinder was as unflappable as ever when she answered. "I think I'll have to decline. I'm not much one for dancing. What little I have done was to avoid a few classmates who were getting… handsy."

Cinder had an impenetrable answer as usual. If she'd said she didn't dance he could have pointed out how she'd already done so. Those had been nothing more than a few short half-song slow dances to break her apart from any crowd of people that had started growing too chummy. He was sure she hadn't noticed his eyes following her and yet she still managed to perfectly explain things away. If it was only Cinder there then Naruto might have doubted himself.

Unfortunately for her, a team was only as strong as its weakest link. The worry and anger that flashed in Emerald's eyes was all the confirmation Naruto needed to know that he was on the right track. "Come on!" Naruto said loudly, pulling a few gazes towards their group. "No need to be so stiff. I've been told tonight is the perfect night to unwind."

"Of course, it's the school dance after all," Cinder's smile gave away nothing, and still Naruto could feel the lack of authenticity in his bones. "Truth be told, it's not that I'm against dancing. Rather, dancing with you is specifically the issue."

"Ouch!" Mercury clutched the fabric of his tux right above his heart. "Cold-blooded."

Naruto didn't say anything in return. All he did was smile. His lack of reaction was unsettling Emerald in an obvious way. Mercury was less straightforward with his intentions. The only thing giving him away was the way his muscles had coiled and were ready to spring into action.

Cinder gave him nothing. That smile? It was perfect, yet Naruto knew it was fake. He knew it because his instincts honed over decades were quietly whispering that to him, yet even those whispers had doubts. Was she up to something? Was he right? Naruto wasn't sure.

He'd push forward and trust his gut.

Naruto literally pushed forward, reaching to grab her hand. Cinder stepped away whole Emerald and Mercury quickly moved to stop him. Naruto's eyes widened.

And suddenly Cinder wasn't moving away from him, she'd fallen forward and braced herself against his chest with her right hand. When she looked up at him, Naruto knew she saw purple ringed eyes looking back at her.

When he looked down at her, Naruto saw her left hand flattened parallel to the ground. It was a signal meant for her teammates. The two of them paused.

Emerald doing so with extreme reluctance.

And that was when Naruto knew the fox had caught the mouse.

"See…" Naruto tilted his head down to whisper into her ear. "I have this theory."

"About women liking pushy men? You may want to revise that."

"I'm sure the aggressive approach doesn't track for some women. In your case, I'm thinking it does."

"Oh? How did you manage across that impression?"

Naruto's grin widened. "Well, as I see it, there are two options. Either you're not going to turn me down because my assertiveness is a huge turn on of yours-"

"I admire your confidence."

"Or," Naruto continued, leaning in a bit more to whisper directly into her ear. Words not meant for Emerald or Mercury. "You won't turn me down because you don't want the attention. People are already starting to look at us. Know that if you do say no, I'll happily accept the rejection... but I won't do it quietly. That wouldn't look so hot for that alibi you're building."

That was his suspicion. The way she'd acted the entire night; being seen without being tied down, regarded by many without allowing herself to be the focus of any. All of it reeked of someone who wanted to be able to claim they'd been somewhere. It was the kind of subtle thing that most people would miss. He probably would have too as a kid. But Naruto hadn't spend the latter part of his life tracking down the top rankers in the bingo book for nothing. When people could transform their appearance at will, it was important to be able to identify the behavior of a criminal.

Now that he'd made his move, all Naruto had to do was wait. If Cinder was innocent or willing to bet he was bluffing then he'd show her he wasn't. He'd take the ridicule of a public rejection on the chin to lay his suspicions to rest and enjoy the rest of the night. He was a little too old to care about his schoolyard rep.

If he was right?

"There _is_ something desirable about a man who knows what he wants. A dance does not sound objectionable."

 _Jackpot._

"Cinder, I-"

"Will wait here for me," Cinder cut her off with a smile. It was done for the benefit of the people who'd begun to pay attention to them. Now that the conflict was defused, the few onlookers quickly grew bored and returned to their business. "I won't be long."

Cinder withdrew her hand and herself from their position against Naruto's body. She then offered her hand daintily as a noble lady might. The idea was almost enough to make Naruto snort. Cinder was not that dainty, feminine appearances be damned. She was a combatant, an opponent. Cinder was a threat.

She was fun.

"Shall we?" Naruto reciprocated the ridiculous formality she put forth. The fire in her eyes danced with the same scorning amusement as his own had.

"Whenever you're ready. I do believe you're leading this time."

 _This time._ Naruto repeated her words in his mind. The way she said it implied that next time she might be the one leading him by the nose. Ha! He'd like to see her try. She might be clever but Naruto had his own wiles and wits. He had experience the like Cinder couldn't compete with. And if she did somehow outmaneuver him?

Pure overwhelming force was always his ace.

But Cinder thought she could win. She thought she could best him. She believed that there was a way to beat him with all her soul. There wasn't. Hundreds upon thousands before her had tried and failed. He'd devoted his life to being the hero his nation would one day need. A hero they _had_ needed. Whatever plan Cinder had was nothing Naruto couldn't handle. He'd most surely dealt with far worse than she could muster, after all.

That meant that until her plans reached a critical phase he could work on her, dissuade her. If he was lucky, Naruto could get her to stop whatever crazy evil plan she had altogether. If not? Eh, he'd be disappointed while he thrashed her into submission before he threw her to Ozpin. Dealing with someone who honestly believed they could beat him was the kind of thrill Naruto thought he'd never get to experience again. He could bear the whole hero bit of stopping the terrorists if it gave him more time to enjoy this.

That was what Pyrrha had suggested. Right? To find a way to have fun with what you have to do?

"You're right," Naruto's mind returned to the task at hand. He looked into her fiery amber eyes. The challenge against him was practically written on her iris. He clutched her hand firmly.

"Then let's get this started."

* * *

 _ **I believe this will be the shorter of the two dance chapters. There's at least 4 scenes in the next one, maybe five.**_

 _ **What did Dove do? He seemed rather certain that Weiss would be coming alone tonight...**_

 _ **Onto the real meat of it, Bunny got friend-zoned. If you didn't see this coming... I donno what to tell you. To be fair, it's not like Naruto has rejected her. The very concept of him in a romantic relationship is beyond his ability to comprehend. Why? It's been implied so far in the story and we'll be boldly stating it next chapter. Not going to give every character motivation away in ANs.**_

 _ **One guy who has consistently understood the motivations behind everything I write is Agent Orden. I legit can't fucking get anything past this guy. It's galvanizing. Orden, whoever you are, I WILL pull the wool over your eyes with character motivations and reasons somewhere. Bet your damn life on it.**_


End file.
